Talk:Mining of Ceres

Mislabeled photo of Pluto
The size comparison photo including Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and Earth had Pluto mislabeled as Eris. The photo is clearly a Hubble image of Pluto. Corrected the caption. 104.228.82.126 (talk) 20:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Shame
As this article was obviously created in an attempt to highlight potential loopholes in the Wikipedia reliable sources ruleset I'm a little reluctant to suggest that it's failed. Bravo on trying to cheat the system into lending both bandwidth and credence to conspicuous cabbagery, and great work on the flagrantly redundant replication of information from the main article on Ceres, however it may be prudent, in subsequent attempts at perversion, to actually identify a loophole first before trying to ram the joke home so vigourously. Hitting the 'no personal homepages as a source' rule square on the nose might embody a spirit of ebullient anarchy, but it's also liable to trip the alarm system. Good luck in future endevours to subvert the system, and long may this and other such ejaculations fly under the radar of the enabled here at Wikipedia.  ◄ ИΞШSΜΛЯΞ  ►  23:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Disagree. It seems a good and interesting article, although with little information. Good enough. Since a kid I read this kind of ideas in astronomy books, and I don't get it why you think it is not encyclopediac. -Pedro 11:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Speaking for myself, I'm not entirely sure why any attempt to subvert any part of Wikipedia should be cause for congratulation. It's not proving anything, since it's a given that any system can be corrupted by those with sufficient desire to see it fail.  In other words, there is nothing clever in doing so.  I'm sure Wikipedians have a sense of humour, in general - but even so, this is an encyclopedia.  See a joke article, laugh about it by all means, then delete it.  There is a clear difference between those who highlight failings in a system out of a genuine desire to drive its improvement, and those who simply derive pleasure from seeing or contributing to the disruption of the system.  The former can be tolerated as they help to develop the system.  But there is no reason to indulge or excuse the selfish motives of the latter. - Adaru 01:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Other than a sense of humor or irony. This poster's sarcasm detector is broken. -Anymouse

Rebuttal of Difficulties
Citation is heavily needed for this article. Shouldn't Ceres be moving with relation to other asteroids in the belt? Nintenfreak 18:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Isn't delta-v just one factor in a much more complex feasibility equation regarding how much fuel the spacecraft would need to carry? The fuel needed depends also on the spacecraft's mass (which shouldn't be assumed to be the same for Mars as for Ceres), on whether the mission includes a (safe) landing (as colonization would) and perhaps a takeoff (assuming the option to return to Earth is strongly desired), on how much fuel can be saved by using gravity-assisted flybys (and a flyby around Jupiter and/or Mars would presumably be more practical for a trip to Ceres than for a trip to Mars), and on whether fuel can be manufactured at the destination (or along the way). Wouldn't more fuel be required for a Mars landing than for a Ceres landing due to the difference in their surface gravity, assuming equally massive spacecraft? (Conversely, couldn't more equipment and people be landed on Ceres given the same amount of "landing" fuel?)

The article neglects to cite a delta-v reference.

My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that it would be silly to colonize inside a strong gravity well such as Mars'; the original Mars colonists might be willing to trap themselves and their descendants in a gravity well, but would their descendants appreciate being trapped? (How do *you* like being trapped on Earth by the enormous expense required to escape?) Also, assuming the asteroid belt has more resources near the surface than Mars has, Ceres and its neighbors could be easier to exploit; don't treat Ceres as if it's as isolated as Mars.

My other opinion is that the cost of space colonization outweighs the benefit. Just send robots for the foreseeable future, and in the meantime figure out how to make Earth more habitable. SEppley (talk) 15:40, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This is unverified original research
Has the colonization of Ceres been explored at any length by any reputable, peer-reviewed publisher? The page sourced as the "[proposal]" of 1 Ceres is a self-published source. Dave Boll (to whose page detailing his plan to colonize Ceres), is nowhere mentioned as an astronomer, as an astrophysicist, as a government worker, etc. His page has not been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. His article is an original, novel synthesis of thoughts without any regard for science. Thus the whole basis of this article is likewise, is an unverified colonization plan.

Unless this article provides verifiable, peer-reviewed colonization research, I plan to nominate it for deletion. This is not a personal attack; I am noting a violation of of two Wikipedia policies: verifiability and no original research.

I think this article is interesting. I found it because of my interest in the solar system. Good luck. I would love to see this article improved, but I will otherwise be a strong advocate for deletion.

Note: I am unable to edit this article myself because of foregoing commitments.

--Iamunknown 02:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added a link to a good relevant research.--Nixer 10:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything in this stub that can be classified as original research. There are obviously no serious colonization plans; those are just ideas, which astronomers have while writing a book. We can't even go to the moon, our neighbour; colonizing Ceres, for the time being, are just thoughts... I think we should also have article stating how people in late 19th century, or other decades, imagined these worlds, for instance, the tropical Venus theory. It would help when one wants to write history or introductions about the subject. --Pedro 11:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This is original research and the article should be deleted. Gnixon 17:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You are all invited to discuss this on this article's AfD page. Awolf002 18:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Why not just merge this page with the main article on Ceres, under a heading like "potential for colonization"? 206.21.141.61 (talk) 04:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Speculation
If we are to have speculation on what areas are to be colonized before Ceres then there's no sense in giving Mars special treatment since nothing has been decided in that area yet. Since the Moon, Venus and Mars are all easier targets than Venus I suggest we either include them all, or leave them all out. For those that doubt the delta-v claim, here it is (pdf). Earth to Ceres = 1.29 years. Venus to Ceres = 1.15 years. The faster rotation makes travel to Ceres easier, as well as the greater number of launch windows. I would prefer all speculation be removed, but if we are to include Mars we will need to include the Moon and Venus as well. Mithridates 19:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ceres definitely an easier target than Venus.--Nixer 20:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The link to the pdf said to support the delta-v claim is broken (404 Not Found.) SEppley (talk) 14:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Please take it up with Geoffrey A. Landis then. He's part of the team that designed the rovers currently running on Mars and he doesn't agree with you. Mithridates 20:18, 12 September 2006 (UTC) PS - it's not the surface of Venus that's being proposed as a location. Mithridates 20:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I know this paper. Colonising Venus' clouds will not help colonizing Ceres anyway. It is not required to colonize Ceres.--Nixer 20:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Colonizing Mars is not required before colonizing Ceres, but is preferred in the studies I've seen (there is one by Robert Zubrin, for example). It is much easier to get to Ceres from Mars than it is to get to Ceres from Earth, so if you have a large colony on Mars, you can use it to support operations on Ceres.  This assumes that Mars is colonized before the asteroids, and you could go direct to Ceres with high-impulse.  Hence the 'possibly'.  Re. Landis and the colonization of Venus, I have also read the paper.  I'm not sure if I trust his results.  That, however, is strictly personal and is not to be included on Wikipedia.Michaelbusch 21:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's preferable to have Mars colonized before Ceres, but since we're speculating here (such as with high impulse instead of making use of rotational speed of a planet) I see no reason to make the cloudtops of Venus the only exception. I think we're all in agreement that Ceres won't be the first place where colonization will happen so if we are to speculate we might as well include all areas that have been proposed by people with serious qualifications such as Landis et al.Mithridates 21:30, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Most researches on Mars and Ceres colonizations (i.e. for example, Zubrin) imply Ceres will probably serve a colony on Mars. Since that I cannot say it is speculation. Landis do not say a colony on Venus should necessary precede the colonization of asteroids.--Nixer 06:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I can see your hand all lover this article, terraformer-jumpboy11jStatue2 (talk) 20:30, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Water Content
The main article on Ceres says that "A study led by Peter Thomas of Cornell University suggests that Ceres has a differentiated interior: observations coupled with computer models suggest the presence of a rocky core overlain with an icy mantle. This mantle of thickness from 120 to 60 km could contain 200 million cubic kilometres of water, which is more than the amount of fresh water on the Earth.[19][2]"

And yet this article notes that the water content is only 1/10th of Earth's. Which is it? JinnKai 00:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between total fresh water and total water on Earth. Ceres may have more fresh water than Earth does, but that is still only about 10% of all of Earth's water (which is mostly salt water, not fresh)Cromdog 20:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Gravity
How do you colonize a body whose escape velocity is less than 2 km/h? If lifting your legs to walk doesn't send you into space, jumping probably would. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.0.118 (talk) 06:44, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ceres has escape velocity of 0.51 km/s, which is not equal to 2 km/h. You cannot jump with 0.5 km/s speed.--Dojarca (talk) 13:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Meaningless references
The references cited on this page do not support the facts that they claim to.

The reference (currently #5) relating to launch windows and flight times to Ceres refers to theoretical flight times using theoretical nuclear propulsion systems, yet the reader of the article gets the impression that it is referring to existing chemical or ion propulsion systems. To make the issue even worse there are 6 scenarios described in the reference and only 2 of them show that Ceres has a shorter flight time.

The reference (currently #6) relating to energy requirements for transport between various inner solar system bodies references a 17 page document by Robert Zubrin which does not specifically say anything about this subject.

I recommend that the whole Strategic Location section be scrapped, since it is an obvious attempt to create a bogus article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Perlscrypt (talk • contribs) 21:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

some info to glean for inclusion
The above objections to this article are really quite snotty. If you spent half the time looking for material with which to improve it, as you did writing pithy prose to persuade us that it's a bad article, the article would be vastly improved by now.

Some claims which make Ceres a compelling site for a mining base, are: Hydrogen is a key element needed for the extraction of oxygen from rocks, and while it is the most-abundant element in the universe, it is relatively rare in space. Delta-v cost to carry water from Ceres to elsewhere in the solar system is lower than from just about anywhere else.

These claims ought to be supportable. Let's find the references.

A google search for  +ceres asteroid "water mining" references -wikipedia  returns, among other things, these..
 * http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/114647-AxL0zH/webviewable/114647.pdf
 * http://davegore.homestead.com/ITSDmin_zupp.html
 * http://www.colonyworlds.com/2006/10/is-asteroid-farming-on-ceres-neccessary.html
 * http://spacecoach.org/timeline/

-- 174.137.243.141 (talk) 16:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, the first two sources are not good. The first source's link is broken and the second source doesn't appear to be a scholarly peer-reviewed source. I did take down the notability flags however, since there seems to be some discussion of the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.109.90.242 (talk) 00:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability and references
I removed the flags for notability and lack of references, since there are secondary sources. Since there are a good number of sources, and since the topic probably couldn't easily be merged into another article, I beleive the subject is notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.109.90.242 (talk) 00:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I noticed that the first reference includes a dead link, so I thought about replacing it with this one:
 * Is that a good idea or not? The links seems to be alive but who knows how long? Nikolas Ojala (talk) 21:49, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is the same ref, just a different link, so I have gone ahead and changed it. If this link breaks, we'd simply have to fix it again. It's no good sticking around with a dead link when there is a working one. --JorisvS (talk) 22:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is the same ref, just a different link, so I have gone ahead and changed it. If this link breaks, we'd simply have to fix it again. It's no good sticking around with a dead link when there is a working one. --JorisvS (talk) 22:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Potential difficulties
This section is unsourced and appears to reflect a bias toward surface colonization. There's no reason why a colony can't be built underground or in the presumed ice, where it would be well shielded. A rotating underground colony would also provide gravity. Not sure how you'd reference this though. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Past colonization?
Has anyone seen any discussion of past colonization of Ceres we could cite? The same advantages that are described in this article should apply, after all, to anyone who has previously been in the system, such as any inhabitants of Venus prior to its resurfacing. As the exploration mission approaches we'll have a chance to keep a close eye on the NASA site and see if we can make out any interesting structures. :) Wnt (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Not a reliable article and source
Looking at the reference #1 rang an alarm bell. A brief search for the name Zachary V. Whitten, reveals no hits in Google Scholar and no credentials nor afiliations are to be found. What is most disturbing, is that his "paper" was not published in a scientific journal of any kind, so it was not peer-reviewed favorably. The article is hosted by a personal blog. While this source seems to be the catalyst for this Wikipedia article, the author seems to be an aficionado. This pivotal reference is of extremely low scientific reliability. See: WP:RELIABLE. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 17:45, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Enough. The scant reliable reference are about mining. The book ref # 1 "Asteroid Mining 101" is a good discussion about the resources that are available in asteroids and how they could one day be extracted. BatteryIncluded (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2016 (UTC)