Would You Become An Asteroid Miner?

[W_L]

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/clive-thompson-11/

 

Could become a big business in our lifetime, especially with the near earth stuff with values in the hundreds of trillions of dollars in raw material.

 

However, I wonder how many people would volunteer to live out in deep space, under absolute zero conditions, fatal accidents possible with a simple air leak or a radiation shield failure, and there will be a massive time lag before the next transport could take you home.

 

I am thinking of a story in my head on the human ramifications of space mining without high tech sci-fi gizmo's and only what we know right now. Imagine a young guy being stuck out there with only a selective few with the "Right" physical and technical skill sets to operate a mining operation, what are the chances for homosexual liasons ? (In one of my stories, highly likely )

Edited January 15, 2016 by W_L

[JamesSavik]

That's an easy one.

 

Yes.

[Parker Owens]

No, I think not. I'd be dead in a day because I'd forget some safety procedure...

[Bill W]

WL, sounds like an interesting premise.  I think it's highly probably and plenty of fortune seekers would be more than willing to take those types of chances (think of the various gold rushes, diamond seekers, and the exploration of the New World).  As far as sex in space, well when there's a limited number of potential sex partners, all sorts of things will happen (think of prisons and the Navy - Winston Churchill once made a comment about the amount of 'buggery' that went on in British ships over the decades).  I see this as a fascinating possibility.     

[JamesSavik]

WL, sounds like an interesting premise.  I think it's highly probably and plenty of fortune seekers would be more than willing to take those types of chances (think of the various gold rushes, diamond seekers, and the exploration of the New World).  As far as sex in space, well when there's a limited number of potential sex partners, all sorts of things will happen (think of prisons and the Navy - Winston Churchill once made a comment about the amount of 'buggery' that went on in British ships over the decades).  I see this as a fascinating possibility.     

 

 

Yarr! Rock Rats, Ben Bova's nickname for asteroid miners, are known for two things.

 

First, hot and cold running sodomy.

 

Second, they stay out for years and when they make it back they have a huge pay check.

[W_L]

 

Yarr! Rock Rats, Ben Bova's nickname for asteroid miners, are known for two things.

 

First, hot and cold running sodomy.

 

Second, they stay out for years and when they make it back they have a huge pay check.

 

It probably would make an awesome story; oil rig workers made huge paydays during the peak of the oil boom in the cold icy waters of the north sea. Space is infinitely colder and more distant with infinitely more mineral wealth.

 

"Blue Lagoon" meets "Cast Away" meets "There shall be Blood" that's just my premise, I bet other writers will use different formulas for the same settings.

Edited January 16, 2016 by W_L