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Asteroids come in different types:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt

The amount and properties of waste rocks depend on the composition:

Carbonaceous asteroids are mainly made up from carbon. One would only mine them for carbon, so the amount of waste would be negligible.

Silicaceous asteroids contain metal silicates. These are powderlike, so one can expect a lot of dust by mining. The final byproduct of refining them for iron or magnesium would be silica, which could be made into solid, stable blocks.

Metallic asteroids are almost pure metall. The waste will be little in this case again.

The amount of waste would be probably lower than by Earth-bound mining, and part of it could get blasted away at speeds exceeding the (pretty low) escape velocity of the asteroid, but measures might would be necessarry to protect the equipment:

A) The accumulation of static charge, which could attract the dust particles needs to be prevented.

B) Joints could be coated into flexible plastic.

C) Mining methods which don't produce dust could be used:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/#harvesting-water

This proposal does not want to harvest all the minerals, but only aims of water. The spallation happens in a closed chamber with solar heat, so dust is not an issue.

And yes, there are some uses for waste rocks too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

The heavier the counterweight is, the shorter the elevator needs to be to have center of mass at GEO. So packing a lot of wastes into a giant bag could save us some thousand kilometers of carbon nanotubes. The same holds for other tether systems requiring counterweights on orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orbital_Support_System

This funny paper shows that transporting lunar rock to Earth using rotovators produces net energy gain:

http://www.tethers.com/papers/LEO2Lunar%2792.pdf

A similar system could drop mining wastes into planetary gravity wells to drive the tethers which ferry up passengers and useful equipment.

Asteroids come in different types:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt

The amount and properties of waste rocks depend on the composition:

Carbonaceous asteroids are mainly made up from carbon. One would only mine them for carbon, so the amount of waste would be negligible.

Silicaceous asteroids contain metal silicates. These are powder-like, so one can expect a lot of dust by mining. The final byproduct of refining them for iron or magnesium would be silica, which could be made into solid, stable blocks.

Metallic asteroids are almost pure metal. The waste will be little in this case again.

The amount of waste would be probably lower than by Earth-bound mining, and part of it could get blasted away at speeds exceeding the (pretty low) escape velocity of the asteroid, but measures might would be necessary to protect the equipment:

A) The accumulation of static charge, which could attract the dust particles needs to be prevented.

B) Joints could be coated into flexible plastic.

C) Mining methods which don't produce dust could be used:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/#harvesting-water

This proposal does not want to harvest all the minerals, but only aims of water. The spallation happens in a closed chamber with solar heat, so dust is not an issue.

And yes, there are some uses for waste rocks too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

The heavier the counterweight is, the shorter the elevator needs to be to have center of mass at GEO. So packing a lot of wastes into a giant bag could save us some thousand kilometers of carbon nanotubes. The same holds for other tether systems requiring counterweights on orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orbital_Support_System

This funny paper shows that transporting lunar rock to Earth using rotovators produces net energy gain:

http://www.tethers.com/papers/LEO2Lunar%2792.pdf

A similar system could drop mining wastes into planetary gravity wells to drive the tethers which ferry up passengers and useful equipment.

Asteroids come in different types:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt

The amount and properties of waste rocks depend on the composition:

Carbonaceous asteroids are mainly made up from carbon. One would only mine them for carbon, so the amount of waste would be negligible.

Silicaceous asteroids contain metal silicates. These are powderlike, so one can expect a lot of dust by mining. The final byproduct of refining them for iron or magnesium would be silica, which could be made into solid, stable blocks.

Metallic asteroids are almost pure metall. The waste will be little in this case again.

The amount of waste would be probably lower than by Earth-bound mining, and part of it could get blasted away at speeds exceeding the (pretty low) escape velocity of the asteroid, but measures might would be necessarry to protect the equipment:

A) The accumulation of static charge, which could attract the dust particles needs to be prevented.

B) Joints could be coated into flexible plastic.

C) Mining methods which don't produce dust could be used:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/#harvesting-water

This proposal does not want to harvest all the minerals, but only aims of water. The spallation happens in a closed chamber with solar heat, so dust is not an issue.

And yes, there are some uses for waste rocks too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

The heavier the counterweight is, the shorter the elevator needs to be to have center of mass at GEO. So packing a lot of wastes into a giant bag could save us some thousand kilometers of carbon nanotubes. The same holds for other tether systems requiring counterweights on orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orbital_Support_System

This funny paper shows that transporting lunar rock to Earth using rotovators produces net energy gain:

http://www.tethers.com/papers/LEO2Lunar%2792.pdf

A similar system could drop mining wastes into planetary gravity wheels to drive the tethers which ferry up passengers and useful equipment.

Asteroids come in different types:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt

The amount and properties of waste rocks depend on the composition:

Carbonaceous asteroids are mainly made up from carbon. One would only mine them for carbon, so the amount of waste would be negligible.

Silicaceous asteroids contain metal silicates. These are powderlike, so one can expect a lot of dust by mining. The final byproduct of refining them for iron or magnesium would be silica, which could be made into solid, stable blocks.

Metallic asteroids are almost pure metall. The waste will be little in this case again.

The amount of waste would be probably lower than by Earth-bound mining, and part of it could get blasted away at speeds exceeding the (pretty low) escape velocity of the asteroid, but measures might would be necessarry to protect the equipment:

A) The accumulation of static charge, which could attract the dust particles needs to be prevented.

B) Joints could be coated into flexible plastic.

C) Mining methods which don't produce dust could be used:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/#harvesting-water

This proposal does not want to harvest all the minerals, but only aims of water. The spallation happens in a closed chamber with solar heat, so dust is not an issue.

And yes, there are some uses for waste rocks too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

The heavier the counterweight is, the shorter the elevator needs to be to have center of mass at GEO. So packing a lot of wastes into a giant bag could save us some thousand kilometers of carbon nanotubes. The same holds for other tether systems requiring counterweights on orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orbital_Support_System

This funny paper shows that transporting lunar rock to Earth using rotovators produces net energy gain:

http://www.tethers.com/papers/LEO2Lunar%2792.pdf

A similar system could drop mining wastes into planetary gravity wells to drive the tethers which ferry up passengers and useful equipment.

Asteroids come in different types:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt

The amount and properties of waste rocks depend on the composition:

Carbonaceous asteroids are mainly made up from carbon. One would only mine them for carbon, so the amount of waste would be negligible.

Silicaceous asteroids contain metal silicates. These are powderlike, so one can expect a lot of dust by mining. The final byproduct of refining them for iron or magnesium would be silica, which could be made into solid, stable blocks.

Metallic asteroids are almost pure metall. The waste will be little in this case again.

The amount of waste would be probably lower than by Earth-bound mining, and part of it could get blasted away at speeds exceeding the (pretty low) escape velocity of the asteroid, but measures might would be necessarry to protect the equipment:

A) The accumulation of static charge, which could attract the dust particles needs to be prevented.

B) Joints could be coated into flexible plastic.

C) Mining methods which don't produce dust could be used:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/#harvesting-water

This proposal does not want to harvest all the minerals, but only aims of water. The spallation happens in a closed chamber with solar heat, so dust is not an issue.

And yes, there are some uses for waste rocks too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

The heavier the counterweight is, the shorter the elevator needs to be to have center of mass at GEO. So packing a lot of wastes into a giant bag could save us some thousand kilometers of carbon nanotubes. The same holds for other tether system requiring counterweights on orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orbital_Support_System

This funny paper shows that transporting lunar rock to Earth using rotovators produces net energy gain:

http://www.tethers.com/papers/LEO2Lunar%2792.pdf

A similar system could drop mining wastes into planetary gravity wheels to drive the tethers which ferry up passengers and useful equipment.

Asteroids come in different types:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/asteroids.txt

The amount and properties of waste rocks depend on the composition:

Carbonaceous asteroids are mainly made up from carbon. One would only mine them for carbon, so the amount of waste would be negligible.

Silicaceous asteroids contain metal silicates. These are powderlike, so one can expect a lot of dust by mining. The final byproduct of refining them for iron or magnesium would be silica, which could be made into solid, stable blocks.

Metallic asteroids are almost pure metall. The waste will be little in this case again.

The amount of waste would be probably lower than by Earth-bound mining, and part of it could get blasted away at speeds exceeding the (pretty low) escape velocity of the asteroid, but measures might would be necessarry to protect the equipment:

A) The accumulation of static charge, which could attract the dust particles needs to be prevented.

B) Joints could be coated into flexible plastic.

C) Mining methods which don't produce dust could be used:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/#harvesting-water

This proposal does not want to harvest all the minerals, but only aims of water. The spallation happens in a closed chamber with solar heat, so dust is not an issue.

And yes, there are some uses for waste rocks too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

The heavier the counterweight is, the shorter the elevator needs to be to have center of mass at GEO. So packing a lot of wastes into a giant bag could save us some thousand kilometers of carbon nanotubes. The same holds for other tether systems requiring counterweights on orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Orbital_Support_System

This funny paper shows that transporting lunar rock to Earth using rotovators produces net energy gain:

http://www.tethers.com/papers/LEO2Lunar%2792.pdf

A similar system could drop mining wastes into planetary gravity wheels to drive the tethers which ferry up passengers and useful equipment.