Posted on 08/03/2019 2:21:52 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Ready to become the first trillionaire? Here’s how.
... blasting them with heat to collect the metals as they melt away.
Honeybee Robotics, a New York-based spacecraft firm, has already developed a steam-propelled mining bot, complete with coring drills to collect samples from distant asteroids and planetary bodies. According to the company, the robot generates its own fuel, which might just save a few bucks in what is sure to be a multi-billion dollar operation.
... Earthlings continue to gobble up resources, mankind may soon be forced to look to space, not only for the riches it promises, but for our continued survival as a species.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
You put a gold asteroid in orbit to mine. The price of gold plummets
Your messin’ with the author’s premise!
Is there any reason to believe that precious metals are found in greater quantity in the asteroid belt? Maybe a bit more accessible?
You put a gold asteroid in orbit to mine. The price of gold plummets
An old discredited economist maintained that the value of an item is determined by the labor to produce it.
I believe he was correct in this case.
It would require massive amounts of labor to produce the tools needed to recover extratrstial gold.
Asteroid mining is about the only part of space exploration that makes Sence. Mining and satalites for offense and defense to protect American interest.
It is likely that many asteroids contain large amounts of precious and rare metals that would not need to be sifted and sorted from large volumes of worthless material.
As others have pointed out - it is an interesting problem in that recovery of the material would be very expensive given current technology. People will certainly try though and technology will improve so it will be feasible at some point. However, this might present another problem - as a “rare” material becomes more prevalent the value may decrease unless they are materials for which demand increases (like rare earth metals).
A cheaper and emerging industry in the future will be deep-earth mining as large amounts of rare metals are known to exist far below the surface.
It is also likely that some will oppose it on legal or environmental grounds - there may also be a “claims” process on the part of nations and/or corporations. These will present some interesting legal cases!
the robot generates its own fuel,
“You put a gold asteroid in orbit to mine. The price of gold plummets”
“Four People Who Single-handedly Caused Economic Crises”
https://smartasset.com/insights/four-people-who-singlehandedly-caused-economic-crises
Mansa Musa is there along w/ Charles Ponzi, Nero and Jay Gould.
Funny thing about Musa is that, while this article states that he inadvertently caused tremendous inflation by dropping so much gold into Egypt & the MidEast, it doesn’t note that at the same time he enriched Italian traders who operated beyond the inflationary impact.
The dude may well have created modern Europe, lol.
SunkenCiv, you may have fun w/ this one.
The entire pile of gold ever mined on Earth, if made into a cube, would be about 70 feet on a side. It would be astonishing if a single particularly rich in gold asteroid didn't exceed that. However, history shows that there's never enough gold -- large gold strikes (including the first place to make coin, ancient Lydia) result in rising demand.
It would require massive amounts of labor to produce the tools needed to recover extratrstial gold.
Yes. At first. Once the gold bug hits industrialist and space exploration is put on a fast track (perhaps hundreds of years from now.) it massive amounts of gold are found and exploited the price will go down. Unless a gold cartel the equivalent of DeBeers captures the lion share of gold bearing space rocks and only slowly releases the product so as to maintain a higher price.
It would be astonishing if a single particularly rich in gold asteroid didn’t exceed that
A key descriptor would be recoverable.
If you don’t bring it home, not worth much.
Perhaps when the space elevator is working...
Jaywalking again John? You know what that means...
THIRTY DAYS HARD LABOR ON THE RT ASTROID!!!
The Sheriff will escort you to the elevator.
NEXT!
If development of the appropriate processing technology doesn't emerge in ten years, I'll be greatly surprised. No one has been doing much work on it until Elon started bringing down the cost of access to orbit.
WSJ, I think, ran an article on an Australian minerals co. chair who made fun of Oceans 13 — the sub would have sunk and the Mini would have collapsed under the pretended amount of gold they stole in the movie.
There was a scam in bit of youth fiction I read when, uh, I was a youth, perhaps in "The Mad Scientists Club" or perhaps one of the Danny Dunn books -- the scammer had painted an ordinary brick gold, then held it over his head with one hand so the gathering crowd could see it. Sidebar:
Stalin's Silver
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