It would be FAR cheaper to build desalination plants than attempt to mine the solar system for ice. Right sizing is a great idea for a lot of folks. It acknowledges that more for the sake of more is a flawed philosophy.
desalination plants only remove salt from the water. They dont create more water which is what 7 Billion + people will need
And where is this water going to be stored or do you plan on simply introducing it to the global hydrologic cycle? lol
As with any resource, transportation and disbursement to the end user is a consideration. Not sure how one thinks it would be more logical and cost effective to look towards space for the mining and transport of a resource when there's plenty of it here on earth that can be modified closer to the point of use. Lots of pie in the sky ideas, if you ask me.
trajectories would have to be carried out carefully but you could send some water laden asteroids to the moon where they could crash harmlessly on the surface. After that you could mine them at will
So you expect that we will use the extra water we mine from the moon then send it back to the moon via a large water balloon so that we don't interfere with the earths hydrologic system? DOH!
Yeah, but how much water do all of these people need? The water isn't consumed and destroyed. The amount of water on the planet fluctuates with tectonic activity but the water that's at the surface now doesn't change much. We might mine it out of the ground for irrigation and electricity generation but the water's not destroyed in the process. It just ends up in the atmosphere or the oceans. We don't need to import space water. We need to use the water we've got wisely and efficiently.
but what about the water that gets polluted by oil or radiation or poison or whatever. There are ways to clean water but radiated water probably cannot be saved. The USA is 1 of the leaders in clean tech today but how are you going to teach the people in Africa, the ME, & other places that cant even read ?
Cool so lets continue to pollute water since we can simply pipe it in from planets afar and hurl it back into space somewhere. Great plan! The U.S. is falling being the EU in terms of sustainability.
Actually . . . asteroid Ceres is no joke, and apparently DOES have more fresh water than the Earth. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050907_ceres_planet.html Whether or not it would be necessary or financially feasible to import water to the Earth is another story, but I doubt the import of water would cause any harm to the Earth, as Earth constantly loses water to space. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/env99/env097.htm Cleaning radiated water is done today, and is, and probably always would be MUCH cheaper than importing water from space. http://radonserv.com/message.asp?id=549
It loses water at a very slow rate. Importing water would be done at a high rate or would need to or else why are we talking about it? It's all rather silly anyway. Quit using so much damned water in the first place and stop polluting that which is here. What is so hard about it? You simple do not go about adding or subtracting molecules from global systems without a care.
When the sun balloons to a red giant, it will swallow the earth....and this will complete the recycling process. The thread is lots of fun to follow. Going offworld to solve our environmental problems here....what a hoot!
I agree . . . importing water to the Earth is, and alway will be a silly notion. So too is the implication that humans' measly ability (now and into the future) to import anything to the Earth can somehow have drastic consequences. What are we going to do, cause the Earth to suffer from water weight gain? Let's see - so far we humans have imported 843 pounds of Moon rocks and some microscopic comet dust . . . while every year, the Earth is bombarded with 40,000 metric tons (88+ million pounds) of space dust. http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20030813/Feature1.asp Don't tell me you are worried about humans importing some deadly bacteria that hasn't already been naturally imported by the trillion of pounds of space debris which have already hit the Earth.
Well where did our water come from ? There are some theories that our water came from water laden Comets that crashed into Earth billions of years ago so it doesnt seem that crazy to import water from space now, by a less dramatic method
By adding water to existing systems you will change the chemical makeup of these systems as well as possibly affecting the climate. It all really depends on how much you are importing and where it is going. Rarely does anyone give a thought to the side effects of introducing excess molecules (DDT, CO2, Mercury etc.) into systems so to assume that anyone will look to the past and change their behavior now is too much to ask I guess. Again, I agree it is a silly notion. All that extra energy that we can supposedly gain from space is going to create heat and byproducts which I will almost guarantee will be toxic. Ahh reality comes back to bite us in the butt again.
Tiny 300 sf House in Toronto Tiny 300 sf house for sale in Toronto, Canada. Full article and pictures: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN1851176820071218
How does the snow fall off the roof? Pretty cool and room for a second floor as long as you don't want stairs. The houses either side most likely have bigger stair wells.
