Especially given that we'll need to leave the magnetosphere to access a lot of space mining. You either bring a ton of shielding+food+water+life support+crew quarters, or you advance autonomous operation. One of those is already happening and highly applicable to other fields.
Imo what ever comes after homo sapiens inherits the solar system, not homo sapiens ourselves
The magnetosphere bit is intriguing... I've never heard of a proposal to use superconductors to generate a miniature magnetosphere outside of earth's. Even for earth orbit it seems that'd be helpful way to reduce radiation exposure. Superconductors should be able to be cooled to operating temperature readily enough, meaning minimal power once charged. Spaceship hulls are aluminum and non-ferromagnrtic. Odd to never have never heard of discussion on the idea. Anyone have resources for such tech?
This has already been proposed for shielding the entire planet Mars, see https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magn... (2017). I'd love to see SpaceX take a crack at this, conceivably it would amount to launching a modified MRI into Mar's L1. It's actually within the launch capability of Falcon Heavy so it's something they could start working on now.
That's amazing! Even a few shipment of neodymium magnets could be sent. Then in a 1,000 years after the collapse of our civilization and emergence of a new technological civilization there'd be a Mars with much thicker atmosphere and potentially even liquid water.
Imo what ever comes after homo sapiens inherits the solar system, not homo sapiens ourselves