Asteroid mining (CAJ)

Hello and welcome to my first CAJ post!

I decided to write about a relatively unknown project – asteroid mining. I am 99% sure that most people do not know what this project is about and what the aim of it is. Luckily the uncertainty is over and over the next few weeks and months you will learn all important facts, at least what I consider important J, about asteroid mining.
Let’s begin.

•   Who is interested in asteroid mining?
•  The company Planetary Resources was founded in 2010 by Eric Anderson. Its mission is “to expand Earth’s natural resource base by exploring the space and developing technologies for asteroid mining”.
• Anderson is convinced that space mining could be the start of a completely new industry sector.

• Which elements do they think asteroids contain?

o   Scientists have already successfully discovered NEAs, Near-Earth Asteroids, which contain one or more of these elements: iron, nickel, magnesium, water, metal, oxygen, gold, platinum.

• Why do they want to mine for these elements in the universe? All of them can be found on earth.
•  Some of these elements are very expensive on Earth and/or are getting less. Platinum, for example, is very rare on Earth. On an Asteroid with about 30 meters diameter there could be platinum worth to 50 billion US dollars. If it became possible to mine for water in the universe, asteroids could be used as a kind of gas stations. Hydrogen and oxygen could be used for spaceship fuel and would reduce the price drastically because fuel would not have to be transported from the Earth to the universe.

• That sounds really interesting but what are asteroids anyway?
• Asteroids are leftover materials from the early solar system. They are classified into three different categories:
• C-type: More than 75% of all known asteroids are considered to be a C-type. Their structure is similar to that of the sun but do not contain hydrogen and helium.
• S-type: These asteroids contain nickel, iron and magnesium.
• M-type: Only a small number of asteroids fit into this category. Nickel and iron can be found on them.

• Where can I get more information about this topic?
•  In my next post J
• Also, this is a great video to start with:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9cLLNpo2f8

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PSA: After-death-avatar

A day in the life of ... Katrin

 “Here in the city, the measure is frozen…” Milow is singing on my bedside table. Unfortunately he is not really there, it is just my alarm clock. Still humming his song, my Thursday can begin. I usually get up at 6:50 am to make sure that the day does not start off stressful. After I have dressed myself and packed my backpack, I am ready for the world. I live in a dorm and therefore share a big kitchen with the other residents. One of them is my “breakfast buddy” Benedikt with whom I always have a nice chat before going to university. My breakfast usually looks the same – one yoghurt pot. I do not drink coffee or tea in the morning, so I am rather quick.

My breakfast

After breakfast I head off to university by my bike, Jessy. I do not like to take the bus because every time I have to do it, e.g. when it rains, it comes late and/or is overcrowded. Using Jessy is a great way to exercise and to wake up.

Jessy :)

University starts at 8:15 with English. It is followed by Sign Language and another English class. After all those courses I am really looking forward to cycling home and cooking dinner. While cooking I like to talk to my friends in the dorm about current events. I then do my homework or read a book. Between half past seven and eight the best part of the day begins. We all gather in the kitchen for what we call “cake evening”. Every Thursday one person is in charge of baking a cake. We sit around the table, gossip about university, play “Activity” or watch TV. At the moment we are busily engaged on watching “Germanys next Topmodel”.

This week we had "Peach and Strawberry Crumble"

I usually go to bed around midnight because I have to get up again at 6:50 am on the next day. On Fridays I normally take the train home to Lower Austria, but this is another story…