Space Mining and Refining
From Terra Invicta Official Wiki
Space Mining and Refining
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 Research Cost: 2500
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| Summary | ||||||||||||||||||
| We develop methods to extract and refine space resources in airless and low-gravity environments. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Description | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hauling raw materials up Earth's gravity well is the very opposite of a long-term plan. In order to spread further into space, we must be able to obtain at least some of what we need from space. Fortunately, nearby asteroids have no shortage of minerals and rare metals, from which we can begin to construct ships and facilities in space. Iron, carbon, aluminum, copper, oxygen, nitrogen, and water will be most urgently required, but gold and platinum will be readily available too. But one cannot mine in space as one would on Earth. For one thing, low or micro-gravity mean mined resources cannot tumble neatly into containers or be automatically gravity-separated by type, while structures cannot be directly built upon the surface. And so it is that the first method devised to address this is a distinctly unglamorous one - a system of long (up to 1 kilometer) cables and collection bags to tether equipment to an asteroid, and to prevent mined resources from simply floating away. This is an important start, but truly mass-mining will require far more advanced solutions - and the capability to do and use more in situ form, rather than depend on what Earth can send. | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Total Research Cost (including itself)
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2000 | 
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0 | |||||||||||||||
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1000 | 
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0 | |||||||||||||||
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0 | 
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0 | |||||||||||||||
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2750 | Total | 5750 | |||||||||||||||
| Direct Prerequisite For | ||||||||||||||||||
| Techs | Projects | |||||||||||||||||
| Mission to the Asteroids • Industrialization of Space • In Situ Resource Utilization | (40%)Molecular Beneficiation • (40%)Rapid Distillation Techniques • (40%)Rapid Fissile Enrichment • (100%)Outpost Mining Complex • (100%)Deep Space Metallurgy • (40%)Water Purification Techniques • (100%)Helium-3 Mine • (100%)Thermal Mining Techniques • (40%)Resource Market Administration | |||||||||||||||||
| Unlocks Orgs | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Quote | ||||||||||||||||||
| "We cannot just send up a bunch of diggers and hope for the best - even dirt doesn't behave the same way up there. One might as well build a house upon a pile of rice." Director Khalid Al-Ashgar, Project Exodus From his irregular newsletter, "Preparing For Tomorrow." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||||
| Data Sources | ||||||||||||||||||
| TITechTemplate_CSV • TIProjectTemplate_CSV • TIOrgTemplate_CSV • TITechTemplate_EN • TIProjectTemplate_EN • TIOrgTemplate_EN | ||||||||||||||||||
| Related Pages | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tech List • Project List • Technology | ||||||||||||||||||
