I don't disagree, but remember the number of asteroids over 100km is around 200. The number of asteroids over 1km is between 700,000 and 1.7 million. That means the very big asteroids are between 0.0003% and 0.0001% of the objects in the asteroid belt. Given that the smallest known Aten asteroid is ~5m in diameter, then it's an easy conjecture that the asteroid belt is likely to have tens if not hundreds of million asteroids <1km in diameter.
They're going to have enough mass that blasting them is going to be impractical. It's going to be a waste attacking a mining asteroid if you're dumping hundreds of munitions at every nearby rock.
> If it has sensors, it has electronics; if it has electronics, those electronics are running at something above 3 Kelvin; if you're running anywhere above 3 Kelvin, you can be seen against the cosmic background.
This is very true, however given the variation in albedo's of asteroids and meteoroids then there's going to be a wide range of 'normal' temperatures for asteroids. With enough processing power you could assume that people would eventually start calculating asteroid albedo vs distance from sun vs apparent temperature. If you've got a light rock that's hot as all hell, then you might be best to shoot it just in case. Probably not likely for civilians at least, even the military might not want to be running too much processing power as they'd have greater heat sinking issues to worry about.
The real thing that will determine how hard or easy to find mines will be is human mining. How much dirt and debris are we going to be producing, or even purposefully producing. If we're mining bigger asteroids are we going to require ships to land, or simply dump payloads into orbit for ships to snag. If we're doing the latter, then we're talking about hundreds of objects running well above background levels. How much rock are we going to strip off an asteroid and leave nearby?
If piracy or warfare becomes real, then mining companies will likely want to limit the approach vectors for incoming ships. What better way than dumping copious amounts of junk in your orbit. Given that a cubic meter of silica weighs around 2500kg, then you're not likely to crash your ship into it at any speed. Put thousands of these in orbit, and people are only going to approach from the clear paths.
Again, all these rocks would be hotter than background, and you only have to mine 1% for it to be a solid defence. Making someone take 100 shots in 1-hit wins warfare is a very effective defence.
They're going to have enough mass that blasting them is going to be impractical. It's going to be a waste attacking a mining asteroid if you're dumping hundreds of munitions at every nearby rock.
> If it has sensors, it has electronics; if it has electronics, those electronics are running at something above 3 Kelvin; if you're running anywhere above 3 Kelvin, you can be seen against the cosmic background.
This is very true, however given the variation in albedo's of asteroids and meteoroids then there's going to be a wide range of 'normal' temperatures for asteroids. With enough processing power you could assume that people would eventually start calculating asteroid albedo vs distance from sun vs apparent temperature. If you've got a light rock that's hot as all hell, then you might be best to shoot it just in case. Probably not likely for civilians at least, even the military might not want to be running too much processing power as they'd have greater heat sinking issues to worry about.
The real thing that will determine how hard or easy to find mines will be is human mining. How much dirt and debris are we going to be producing, or even purposefully producing. If we're mining bigger asteroids are we going to require ships to land, or simply dump payloads into orbit for ships to snag. If we're doing the latter, then we're talking about hundreds of objects running well above background levels. How much rock are we going to strip off an asteroid and leave nearby?
If piracy or warfare becomes real, then mining companies will likely want to limit the approach vectors for incoming ships. What better way than dumping copious amounts of junk in your orbit. Given that a cubic meter of silica weighs around 2500kg, then you're not likely to crash your ship into it at any speed. Put thousands of these in orbit, and people are only going to approach from the clear paths.
Again, all these rocks would be hotter than background, and you only have to mine 1% for it to be a solid defence. Making someone take 100 shots in 1-hit wins warfare is a very effective defence.