Posted on 06/12/2018 10:14:02 AM PDT by Red Badger
The world’s first trillionaire won’t come from cryptocurrency or some clever new app – he or she will become rich from asteroid mining. _____________________________________________________________________
That’s what bankers Goldman Sachs reckon, anyway – and several companies are now vying to be the first into space.
NASA estimates that the total value of asteroids out there could be up to $700 quintillion – equivalent to £75 billion each for us here on Earth.
Several companies are now buidling the machines which will take us there – including Deep Space Industries, which is building a steam-powered thruster for spacecraft, the Guardian reports.
British company AMC (Asteroid Mining Corporation), hopes to send tiny spacecraft out to grab platinum (common in asteroids, and very pricey on Earth) and then use the metal to finance bigger missions.
American companies such as Planetary Resources – backed by Titanic director James Cameron – are already planning to send robotic vehicles to mine precious metals and rare resources from asteroids.
Some have predicted that the mineral wealth is so vast it could destroy our world’s economy.
NASA’s Psyche mission is set to launch in 2022 – and will target a metal-rich asteroid known as 16 Psyche, estimated to be worth £8,000 quadrillion.
Christian Schroeder of the University of Stirling says, ‘Asteroids crossing Earth’s orbit may become convenient targets for mining operations, providing materials that are running out on Earth.’
Psyche principal investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe said earlier this year that the 124-mile wide asteroid would be worth the astronomical sum if we could somehow drag it back to Earth.
Elkins Tanton said, ‘Even if we could grab a big metal piece and drag it back here … what would you do?
‘Could you kind of sit on it and hide it and control the global resource – kind of like diamonds are controlled corporately – and protect your market? What if you decided you were going to bring it back and you were just going to solve the metal resource problems of humankind for all time? This is wild speculation obviously.’
So long as there was only a small supply, no practical use could be made of aluminum. Once it became an affordable commodity, countless uses for it were discovered and whole industries grew as a result. Aviation and space are two examples. Aluminum created far more wealth once it became a common materiel than it ever did when it was scarce. Gold has so many unique qualities, that I would expect the same thing to happen if it became more affordable.
Yep - "And the king (Solomon) made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah." - 2 Chronicles 9:27
Pie in the Sky. the cost alone would be monumental.
because then they have to admit their ideas don’t work...………..
Exactly, but there is one new mineral that they will find in droves and it exists here on Earth
Stupidium .....
Bring in the heavy metals back here will increase the mass of earth...messing up tides...distance to moon and sun...and crashing the earth into the sun....then gold and platinum is really worth nothing...
I agree with you.Most people don’t understand the problems associated with space travle. I don’t think we will see humans in space except for research and as daredevil stunts for the next 100 years. there are just to many issues that need to be solved. unfortunately lots of intelligent people have not looked at the current technical problems likwe.
1. cost of leaving a gravity well like earth.
2. effects of micro gravity on the human body.
3. the damage that cosmic radiation does on the human body.
4. trustworthiness of complicated technological devices used in space travle and in life support systems.
5 political will to spend the money to solve all theses problems.
Good analysis...but the aluminum is cheap...it is the work with and by the aluminum workers which creates wealth..so the report about peoples wealth with plentiful gold is gonna be dependant on work done...
WTF!? Hey?
Oh lets get all that gold off from one of those and we will all wealthy.
Dam, there are some really stupid people on this earth.
This is idiocy. The volume of asteroids is likely much larger than our whole planet! That's like estimating the value of Jupiter divided by the number of people on Earth. Not a meaningful calculation.
Well, the economics just don’t work for mining anything remotely common on earth, for the reasons you point out.
However, for some minerals that are very rare on earth, but common in space, the economics might work out. You would have a very large upfront cost setting up the operation, but the continuing cost of operations wouldn’t need to be that high if you planned it well. As soon as it was up and running you would essentially corner the market on a valuable commodity by controlling the majority of the supply. That advantage would disappear as soon as a competitor shows up though, unless you set up a cartel like OPEC to stop anyone else from flooding the market.
And Todd Hoffman would explode on the launch pad.
Wasn’t there a “Twilight Zone” about gold becoming worthless?
Yep!.........................one of my favorites!............
“starting with the energy expenditure to get “stuff” into space and then the fact that you need to get it back down makes all of this silly”
Well, getting it back down to earth is essentially free, thanks to gravity. There is some minor cost getting to and from the asteroid belt, but if you are willing to use gravity assists and tolerate long voyages you can get anywhere in the solar system for very little fuel once you are up in space.
That just leaves the expense of getting into earth orbit in the first place as the big problem. Basically, the most sensible way to handle this is to build a space station that will handle sending out unmanned probes, refueling, and servicing them, and then you will just need to launch rockets to send more fuel to the space station occasionally. That’s going to be a huge upfront expense, but it would probably be the best way to keep the ongoing costs minimal.
Now, if you could find some source of water on those asteroids and set up a solar powered operation to turn that into rocket fuel, then you don’t need to worry about launching anything out of earth’s gravity well once the space station is set up, and you would really be cooking.
It would seem that this would justify the start up cost of a space elevator.
“...if we could somehow drag it back to Earth.” Dude, it’s pull. Newspapers reporters should interview scientists next time.
Didn’t we learn anything from Alien? lol
“Supply/demand is missing from this analysis.”
Not according to 5 year plan comrade. Static Soviet analysis always correct! Dynamics are instruments of capitalist-imperialist pigs! We control price!!! We control price!!!
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