Extraction Platforms

Overview

Extraction platforms are the front line of belt mining – smaller installations, some permanent and some mobile, attached to productive asteroids. They range from major permanent stations of 500 workers to temporary platforms with crews of 50 or fewer. This is where the actual mining happens: explosives, laser cutters, mass drivers, and human hands in spacesuits.

Platform Categories

Permanent Installations host 200-500 workers on high-yield asteroids with 10+ year operational lifespans. These offer minimal amenities but relative stability.

Semi-Permanent Sites house 50-200 workers for 2-5 year operations on medium-yield sites. Housing is often in attached hab-ships rather than built structures.

Temporary Platforms support 10-50 workers for operations under 2 years. Crew lives entirely aboard hab-ships; the platform itself is minimal infrastructure.

Equipment

Standard extraction equipment includes laser cutters for precision work, explosive charges for mass extraction, electromagnetic mass drivers for ore transport, environmental suits for EVA operations rated at 8-12 hours, and atmospheric monitoring and emergency systems – when they’re functioning.

The Mining Process

Surveys identify promising asteroids. Platforms are established or mobile operations deployed. Workers extract material using lasers, explosives, and manual methods. Ore is processed locally – crushing and sorting – then launched via mass driver to collection points. Collection ships transport the material to Vesta for refining.

What Goes Wrong

The list of what can fail on an extraction platform is long: explosive charges that miscalculate asteroid composition, atmospheric systems in pressurized sections that fail causing decompression, EVA suit failures leading to radiation or vacuum exposure, mass driver malfunctions creating dangerous projectiles, and communication failures that cut platforms off from support.

Atmosphere

The muffled thump of distant explosives. The whine of laser cutters. The silence outside, broken only by suit communication. Inside your suit after hours of EVA: sweat, stale oxygen, the copper taste of fear. Equipment vibration through gloves. The strange absence of weight while working mass that could crush you. Stars unobscured by atmosphere, the spray of debris from cutting operations, the sharp shadows of work lights.

And always the contrast: cramped hab-ship interiors against the infinite emptiness outside.