Terrestrial Mg mining produces just shy of 1000 tons per day.
To terraform Venus's atmosphere with MgH2 in 1000 years, the robots in the belt and near Jupiter would have to process roughly 3.6e17 g per day, which is hundreds of billions of tons, hundreds of millions of times more than the entire Earth mines in a day.
You would need a lot of robots.
The project would have to be an AI capable of the following:
- Run for 1000 years without failure.
- Build robots that can build robot-building robots.
- Build robots that can build robots that mine S-type asteroids.
- Build robots that can build robots that mine hydrogen from Jupiter or its moons to make MgH2 and CaH2.
- Build robots that can build robots that patiently move bulk cargo around the solar system.
- Build robots that can build robots that electrolyze water in Venus orbit.
- Build robots that can build robots that defend and repair the project infrastructure.
- Build robots that can build robots that build and operate orbital shades, lenses, and mirrors.
- Fairly allocate the surplus by-products to human bidders.
The project would be a significant source of cheap aluminum, iron, nickel, silicon, sodium, potassium, and oxygen, as well as as much magnesium and calcium as is needed for ecosystem life support in space. Enough Ca and Mg to make all the bones of a billion animals is an insignificant fraction, compared to the amount required for terraforming.
The attention span of a human is already too short to spend 100 years moving tons of boring old rock to a rendezvous orbit. The goal has to be to set up a system that benefits humans to allow it to continue without interference, rather than one that requires cooperation.
To terraform Venus's atmosphere with MgH2 in 1000 years, the robots in the belt and near Jupiter would have to process roughly 3.6e17 g per day, which is hundreds of billions of tons, hundreds of millions of times more than the entire Earth mines in a day.
You would need a lot of robots.
The project would have to be an AI capable of the following:
- Run for 1000 years without failure.
- Build robots that can build robot-building robots.
- Build robots that can build robots that mine S-type asteroids.
- Build robots that can build robots that mine hydrogen from Jupiter or its moons to make MgH2 and CaH2.
- Build robots that can build robots that patiently move bulk cargo around the solar system.
- Build robots that can build robots that electrolyze water in Venus orbit.
- Build robots that can build robots that defend and repair the project infrastructure.
- Build robots that can build robots that build and operate orbital shades, lenses, and mirrors.
- Fairly allocate the surplus by-products to human bidders.
The project would be a significant source of cheap aluminum, iron, nickel, silicon, sodium, potassium, and oxygen, as well as as much magnesium and calcium as is needed for ecosystem life support in space. Enough Ca and Mg to make all the bones of a billion animals is an insignificant fraction, compared to the amount required for terraforming.
The attention span of a human is already too short to spend 100 years moving tons of boring old rock to a rendezvous orbit. The goal has to be to set up a system that benefits humans to allow it to continue without interference, rather than one that requires cooperation.