CAJ - is it realistic?

Hi,

This post focuses on the question whether asteroid mining is realistic or not.

Eric Anderson, the founder of Planetary Resources, makes very clear that asteroid mining takes its time. He says that he “does not expect to be in the black overnight. We have long-term goals”. This means that the project will probably not start tomorrow or next week. In April 2012 the company announced that they would like to start mining for asteroids in 24 months with a spaceship called “Arkyd”. However, they did not reach their goal. On their website they mention that two NEAs (=near-Earth asteroids) have been explored by robotic spacecraft and that NASA is working on its own mission, the OSIRIS- Rex¹ spacecraft. It should explore the promising asteroid 1999 RQ 36 in 2016 of which observations suggest that it is rich in carbon.

1999 RQ 36: Pretty big, huh?

On the other hand, Planetary Resources is also making progress. Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian-American software executive donated $ 20 million to the company. Simonyi is the fifth space tourist worldwide, a fact that shows that he is a rather wealthy man. The company is investing the money in their Large Scale Synoptic Telescope which is used for further asteroid observation. As you can see, asteroid mining is something that takes time, a lot of money and effort. But the fact that they cannot realize their project now does not mean that it cannot happen in the further future.

Planetary Resources has created a very nice video on the subject of asteroid mining. Of course it supports it but the video is nicely animated, informative and not very complicated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYYPN0BdBw

CAJ - Asteroid mining

Hi!

In this blog post we will mainly focus on the question how to mine asteroids but at first some facts about a man who is very interested in asteroid mining. In 1997 the US astrophysicist John S. Lewis wrote a book called “Mining the Sky” in which he describes his vision that asteroid mining could save the world’s three most severe problems, namely mineral resources, generation of energy and food supply. Although this book was written over ten years ago it is still interesting for today’s scientists. Lewis was a highly regarded professor of planetary science at the University of Arizonas and is expert in this field. In his book he states that asteroids could not only be used for mining purposes but could also be hollowed out and used as living space.

This idea sounded a bit weird for me when I first read about it but then reminded me of the “Dystopia film” we watched in Hendrik’s class. Lewis thinks that living on other planets could solve the problem of overpopulation. Of course, these asteroids would have to be earth-like or terrestrial planets and be composed primarily of rocks or metals. The existence of water is also essential since human beings cannot live without it. John S. Lewis calculated that ten quadrillion people could live on these earth-like worlds. Ten quadrillion is that much: 10 000 000 000 000 000 = 10¹⁵ (I have no idea how you can calculate something like this but he is a professor and I am sure he knows what he is doing, so...).

Enough of that, let’s focus on how asteroid mining could work in practice. At the moment scientists can think of three possible ways.

    1.  The first one is to mine the materials and bring them back to Earth to process them there.

a.  Advantage: All needed machinery to process the material is on Earth

b.  Disadvantage: The room on the spaceship is limited à very time-consulting to mine whole planet

    2.  Process the materials directly on asteroids and bring the final product back to Earth

a.  Advantage: Some of the mined materials could be used as fuel for the return flight à spaceship has to transport less fuel à can transport more material

b.  Disadvantage: Every needed machine would have to be brought to the asteroids first

     3.  Bring the asteroids to the International Space Station (ISS)

a.  Advantage: Whole asteroids could be mined

b.  Disadvantage: If something goes wrong the asteroid could hit the Earth. This would lead to a catastrophic event.

As you can see scientists are thinking a lot about this subject but have not found the ideal way yet.

Migrant Mother - Description

Depressed, hopeless and gazing into space, Florence Owens Thompson depicts the sorrow surrounding her. She is in the center of the photograph, taking up most of the image. Her arm is supporting her head, looking like she is in fear of the future. The long and bony fingers are touching her narrow and dry lips, which have not tasted proper food and clean water for quite some time. Deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes make her look older than she probably is, as well as revealing her concern for the family's future. The mother is wearing a checked shirt and a vest that look old, torn and itchy, as if they were made out of burlap. Hidden in her arm lies an infant wrapped in a dirty blanket. Next to the mother are her two older children leaning on her shoulders. Both children are not facing the camera but have instead buried their faces in their hands. It seems as though they are trying to hide behind their mother where they feel safe and protected. What can be easily noticed by looking at the children is that they have the same hairstyle, namely a bowl haircut. The light hair color of the child standing on the viewers right side makes a good contrast to the mother’s and other childs dark hair. Last but not least, the pale background illustrates the hopelessness and bleakness of her situation.

(237 words)

CAJ - 55 Cancri e

Hey guys!

This is my second CAJ blog post and it deals with a very interesting planet. I am aware that my main topic is asteroid mining but I read something that is so cool that I could not resist to blog about it.

Imagine a planet that is completely covered with diamonds. Sounds great, doesn’t it? If you discovered this planet and were allowed to mine it what would you do with all the diamonds? Would you start wearing jewellery like this:

Or use it for other purposes:

What would you say if I told you that there is a planet in the universe that consists of one third of pure diamonds? You won’t believe me? Here we go:

The planet 55 Cancri e was discovered in 2004 by scientists and its surface is believed to be covered with graphite and diamonds. 55 Cancri e is 40 light years, which are about 125 091 648 000 kilometres, away from our solar system. Compared to the distance between the earth and the moon, which is “only” 1.3 light seconds, 55 Cancri e is a very remote planet and it would take a long time to get there. For this reason it was not yet possible to land on the planet but scientists managed to compute the size and volume of it. 55 Cacri e is twice the size of the earth and eight times heavier. It is orbiting a sun like star very closely and therefore a year on this planet lasts only 18 hours. Due to its closeness it can get very hot on 55 Cancri e, 2000° Celsius and more are normal temperatures. If scientists were able to mine the planet, diamonds would probably become very cheap on earth and nearly everyone could afford them.

Although this sounds very promising and astronomers are very interested in exploring the diamond planet and taking probes of it, it could take a long time until they finally manage to do so because of the position and the high temperature on 55 Cancri e. 

Narrative article homework

Paul, the young doctor with black hair and ice blue eyes quickly follows a nurse in her 40s through the wide corridors of Saint Peter’s University Hospital in London. The typical smell of disinfectant is in the air. They stop in front of the delivery room’s swing doors through which you can see hospital staff working hectically. Cecilia, the nurse, informs him in brief about the patient whom he should help. “Sophie, a 20 year old woman, came earlier today because of severe back pain. She was sent home with painkillers because the doctor who examined her could not find anything. He thought that she was suffering from menstrual cramps. Now she is back, I did an ultrasound and found out that she is pregnant. The baby will be here any minute.” Paul listens to the nurse in disbelief but knows that there is no time to lose. He pushes against the heavy doors and hears Sophie screaming because of labour pains.

Narrative: Little History of Photography

2^nd Version: History of photography - narrative

Boulevard du Temple, taken in 1839 by painter and chemist Louis Daguerre, is hanging on one of Louvre’s walls and is watching the tourists who pass by. Suddenly it notices a man in his 40s with shorts and a t-shirt who looks very dissatisfied with his camera. The photo can hear him moaning that the camera he bought does not take pictures satisfyingly. Boulevard du Temple laughs to itself and thinks of the time it was taken. The photo is sure that if this man could hear the story of photography, he would appreciate the tiny device he is holding in his hands.

The day the photo was taken was a very special one. Daguerre was the first photographer who managed to depict a person on a photo. Because of the long exposure time it was impossible to photograph moving objects such as passersby. Nevertheless, the man on the photo remained still long enough and so became part of this historic photo. However, it was not the first one that had been taken. In 1825 Joseph Niepce photographed Le Gras in France. Niepce’s idea was to apply bitumen to metal plates. The material hardened in the light and the unhardened rest was washed away. The metal plate was polished, the negative covered with ink and the photographed image would appear. Still, this early technique had its downsides. The plates were very heavy and expensive. Therefore, only rich people could afford being photographed. Secondly, exposure time was very long thus people being photographed needed something to lean on, namely props. This is why oval tables and pillars can often be seen on early photos. Long exposure would also lead to Mezzotint which means that photos have a soft black to grey to white gradation.

 A few years later, Daguerre invented his own technique, the daguerreotype, where the plate would be coated with silver, exposed and then the remaining silver would be removed. Time went by and photography became more popular. In 1840 almost every miniaturist had become a professional photographer because no one was interested in miniatures anymore.

The photo remembers all these events as though they were yesterday. The tourist in the museum should be grateful for all the people who worked on developing photography and cameras which led to what he is holding in his hands right now.

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Comment:
My fellow students had some very useful suggestions for my text. They pointed out that the introduction should be separated from the main text. They also felt that there was no connection between some sentences so I rewrote these parts.