Yeah, but Newt Gingrich is an “idiot” for saying we should go back to the Moon...
People laughed at Newt Gingrich when he talked about space mining. But he knew what he was talking about, and that’s obviously where it’s at. That’s where the money is going.
I’d like to think so but there are some big legal hurdles to overcome if he hopes to make any money.
... politician Ross Perot’s son, among others.”
Ross Perot is a politician?
Not impossible. For example, just the near Earth asteroid 433 Eros is 21 miles by about 9x9 miles in size, but is believed to have more of several valuable metals such as platinum group metals than exist in the entire crust of the Earth.
It has an irregular orbit and at one point comes within 100 million miles to Earth. NASA has already landed one probe on it.
So if a robot mining, ore concentrating probe landed on it, it could mine and concentrate the ore into a big ball of crude metals. And because 433 Eros is rotating, a cable could be run from it with the ball on the end, to give it great momentum, that when detached would hurl it towards where Earth was going to be.
Once close enough, the ball could be collected in near orbit and brought to Earth. Platinum alone is already worth about $1600/oz.
I hope they’ve read up on Dandridge MacFarlan Cole:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandridge_MacFarlan_Cole
Dude know more about asteroids than anybody, and he’s been dead fifty years.
Look for Obama to sign an Executive Order putting all space mining under Federal control.
The whole reason these things are valuable is that they are scarce.
If you managed to bring a $20T nickel-iron asteroid into earth orbit and mine it, the primary result, besides causing a lot of earthside nickel and iron miners to lose their jobs, would be a catastrophic drop in the price of nickel and iron.
“Trillions of dollars to the global GDP”
Prolly means about $.10 for every man woman and child after Cameron and his globalist investor buddies enjoy their take
enjoy your wealth
(oh, and don’t forget you owe $.03 in global tax on your share)
Awesome!!
Where do I sign up?
I hope that this truly is an enterprising commercial space effort to mine the heavens, but knowing the political nature of the players involved, I am fearful that it is just some green scam. Please prove me wrong guys.