MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 30: “Mining” of a DIFFERENT Type!

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it's become FASCINATING…

Imagine my AMAZEMENT when I met someone who has done real research on asteroid, 4179 Toutatis! It may very well be one of the defining moments of my life!

I met a scientist who works for the SETI Institute!!!!!!!

Why is that significant? Do I think there are aliens traveling on Toutatis?

No, of course not! You think I’m crazy or something???? ‘cause I’m not! My mom said so! (My wife, kids, spouses, siblings, in-laws, and outlaws) think I’m a little weird, but that’s not the same as CRAZY!) No…the reason it’s so crazy is that:

1) A scientist who works for SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute will be coming to speak to a class I teach called Alien Worlds!

2) I used the asteroid 4179 Toutatis as the piece of space rock that NASA and several other world space agencies transformed into the Solar System Survey Ship, SOLAR EXPLORER in my 2024 YA/MS novel EMERALD OF EARTH!

So…I met the SETI Institute scientist at the recently completed MiniCon; and while I reported on the convention, I didn’t specifically mention meeting him.

When I did break away from my “sales table” to go see him, he was really nice AND totally normal! He sent me a link to the paper and I read it, understanding some of it, but not all of it. I DID read enough to know that it is NOT one of the asteroid that we’ll be mining any time soon.

I DO know that its orbit around the Sun takes it into the vicinity of Earth every four years or so, as well as approaching “fairly close” to Jupiter It also has a reasonable velocity and THAT is why I chose it. Below, you'll find a bit from my 2024 YA/MS novel, EMERALD OF EARTH

“…first glimpse of SOLAREX.”

“What is it?”

“Now it’s Humanity’s Last Greatest Adventure,” Rashida said as Emerald echoed word-for-word.

“I mean, what is it? A silver rocket ship?”

“It’s a hollowed out asteroid.”

“A what?” They passed through a garden filled with dark green bushes and plants that all had white blossoms in half-a-dozen shapes and sizes. The air was redolent. Even Rashida fell silent until they were through it.

“At one time, the asteroid was called 4179 Toutatis. We captured it, hollowed it out, and then turned around and smelted the metals from the rock into structural elements. Now it’s ready.”

“How does it move?”

Rashida smiled, leaned forward, and whispered, “It’s a secret, but I hear it has something to do with a subatomic black hole and a long fall.”

“What?”

 (photo of my daughter's interpretation of SOLAREX!)

The upshot of this is that Toutatis isn’t an asteroid we’ll ever mine. In fact, it’s been described as a “rubble pile”, that is, it’s a whole bunch of rocks that crashed into each other and stuck. It’s NOT a goldmine (or a palladium or silver or any other precious metal mine. Toutatis is a dump truck of rocks…which suits its use as an exploratory craft up for a remodel. It’s ALSO, however, not going to be terribly difficult to create a honeycomb of caves, hallways, and meeting places. Asteroids like Toutatis aren’t “soft” the way we think of soft…but they ARE soft in relation to say, an iron ore mine on the Cuyuna, or Mesabi, or the Vermillion Range.

My wife and I LOVE remodeling shows on various minor TV platforms. Maybe that’s why I love the idea of making Toutatis into a solar exploration ship – SOLAREX, in other words! So, this one isn’t about mining the asteroids for riches…so much as it’s about mining the asteroids – particular ones; of which Toutatis might be one; to carry us around the Solar System with relatively little effort. Which may be, in the long run, valuable in and of itself.

Today’s Source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/146/4/95/pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis#/media/File:Animation_of_4179_Toutatis's_orbit_around_Sun.gif ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis ; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103512004113#:~:text=Surface%20composition%20of%20near%2DEarth,content%20and%20a%20differentiated%20body.
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth
, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Interesting Stuff The Might Apply To Mining Asteroids: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgej7gzg8l0o

Image: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Josep-Trigo-Rodriguez/publication/261287332/figure/fig4/AS:296933672407047@1447805912917/El-asteroide-4179-Toutatis-nos-muestra-que-se-encuentra-formado-por-dos-objetos-de-4-y.png