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A space elevator on Ceres (with today's tech) and the gravitational assist of Jupiter for returning payloads back to Earth, could allow us to start mining the asteroid belt costing just $5 billion. (www.universetoday.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

All deep space mission proposals like this conveniently ignore the unsolved problems of long term radiation exposure and food supply, among many others.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

That’s already a solved problem - the billionaires will simply send us up in waves.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Once we're at the technological level of mining asteroids, I think food supply and radiation shielding will be comparatively small challenges. Food can be grown wherever there is sunlight, and radiation can be mitigated by placing sufficient matter on the exterior of the habitats.