NASA to explore space rock worth so much money it would DESTROY world economy

Daily Star ^ | 16th January 2017 | Peter Truman

[COBOL2Java]

THE American space agency is planning to send a spacecraft to a lump of metal in space worth quadrillions of dollars.

The 200km-wide asteroid is currently orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

It is made up of various precious metals such as iron, nickel and gold.

Experts believe the iron alone in the rock would be worth $10,000 quadrillion – enough to cause the world’s economy, worth $73.7 trillion, to promptly collapse altogether.

[dhs12345]

And it lands on a city and destroys the planet killing everyone and everything.

[Born to Conserve]

Yes, just like the steam engine, coal mining, electricity, frozen food, the automobile, ...

[Proyecto Anonimo]

PROPAGANDA. Makes it look like Obama struck it rich for America.

The author wrote this two hours later....

WW3 THREAT: Putin’s latest weapon will blow US missiles out of sky

[RC one]

seems like it could be incredibly useful some day.

[dhs12345]

Or was that preparation H? “It’s good on the whole.”

[MHGinTN]

The lump is likely radioactive ...

[volunbeer]

In my best TV Announcer voice, next week on Gold Rush.

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Let’s put the Hoffman’s on this right away........ what could possibly go wrong?

[lafroste]

Didn’t the Earth have a flyby last summer of an asteroid that was estimated to contain 100 million tons of platinum? That puppy hasn’t gotten too far away yet.

[moovova]

Boom!

[from occupied ga]

Useful only if you can get it cheaper than obtaining the same materials here on earth.

Short of science fiction space drives that violate Newtons laws and the first and second laws of thermodynamics and bypass gravity that isn’t going to happen.

[TigersEye]

It's mine. It's my asteroid!

3 15 43 32

[myerson]

If its worth that much, then its worth nothing.

[Red Badger]

Todd would still screw it up!...........

[dr_lew]

I say it is fake news. It’s not happening now, for starters, and that makes it non-news. But it’s not gonna happen within, oh, a hundred years, and that makes it fake news.

[Daniel Ramsey]

Well, the Chinese could care less about everyone else, they WILL dedicate the countries GDP to put their flag on it.

Kennedy swore we would walk on the moon in a decade, Trump could say the same thing about claiming a rock in space made of rare earth minerals.

Just have to forget the negatives.

[Pollster1]

Experts believe the iron alone in the rock would be worth $10,000 quadrillion – enough to cause the world’s economy, worth $73.7 trillion, to promptly collapse altogether.

No, a windfall return does not collapse the economy. It causes dislocations, but those are paired with so much opportunity that it's hard for most people to mind. I'll take those minerals happily and without fear (even if some of my property loses value).

[entropy12]

FAKE NEWS! Just as fake as reaching another planet with life. The nearest such planet will require 50,000 generations of human beings to breed inside a space rocket. So crazy!

[Secret Agent Man]

thats my view too.

not. gonna. happen.

the only astronauts we are putting up in space are on the big screens.

[laplata]

But it’s not gonna happen within, oh, a hundred years, and that makes it fake news.

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So babies born 100 years now are fake news? Okay......

[DBrow]

I doubt the economics analysis included the cost of going there, processing the ore (space habitat, personnel, supply ships, technology) and getting it back to Earth.

It would take 50 years of development to be able to start to do it, which when factored in, might yield a different result.