If mining asteroids becomes commonplace is any element rare enough to be money?

[dKingston]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

[LostDutchman]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

So you are saying that the discovery of such an asteroid and the subsequent mining thereof would herald the End of The World As We Know It?

My $.02.

[Lethn]

lol seriously? You know he's not saying that in the slightest, he's just pointing out something entirely true and I'm a Jeweller ffs, to be honest, space asteroids would be great for someone like me because it would mean that I could buy up gold for my Jewellery at cheap prices whereas now I'm having to stick to silver because gold is just too damn expensive to learn with never mind produce a lot of Jewellery with.

The precious metals markets would certain have massive crash and you'd see panic from people like Peter Schiff but eventually we'll just go and find some other rare metal to latch onto as a store of value.

[txbt]

we arn't talking about guys in space suits with pick axes here. we are talking about someone buying up a big desert somewhere and vaporizing it on entry in the atmosphere above his property and then harvesting it with a big machine like a spice harvester from dune. or something else novel like that.

When do you think this will be possible? I wonder how much will it cost to bring it down to earth? (assuming that aerospace regulators will allow it).

[Anon136]

we arn't talking about guys in space suits with pick axes here. we are talking about someone buying up a big desert somewhere and vaporizing it on entry in the atmosphere above his property and then harvesting it with a big machine like a spice harvester from dune. or something else novel like that.

When do you think this will be possible? I wonder how much will it cost to bring it down to earth? (assuming that aerospace regulators will allow it).

probably within the next 100 years. the thing is that the markets will start pricing this in 100 years in advance, and i am living proof of this because i sold silver to buy bitcoin for (atleast partially) precisely this reason.

[dKingston]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

So you are saying that the discovery of such an asteroid and the subsequent mining thereof would herald the End of The World As We Know It?

My $.02.

I don't know why you are thinking that world would end if we are starting mine asteriods? Lol

Most of this ores are to be used in space. Like to build cities in mars, space cities, moon base and many other things. Do you know the cost of getting 1pound of payload to space?

[harlemx]

Mining asteroids is a huge undertakings. My guess mining would not even start in 2050.

[sudoku]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

[Revolution]

One of the reasons i bought bitcoin is because i was worried about the possibility of asteroid mining. I have been told that a single captured asteroid could potentially double the supply of gold or silver. This would make these elements essentially worthless as money. You wouldn't be strong enough to carry enough to buy something with them. So then my question is, if this were to happen would something like iridium be rare enough to still allow value to be portable even under these circumstances?

That is a very good question and I have no idea.

My $.02.

Well that was in depth.

"key elements needed for modern industry, including antimony, zinc, tin, silver, lead, indium, gold, and copper, could be exhausted on Earth within 50–60 years"

These

[Lethn]

Mining asteroids is a huge undertakings. My guess mining would not even start in 2050.

I disagree

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/bullshit-or-no-bullshit-daily-show-neil-degrasse-tyson-video_n_1455363.html

[Revolution]

Mining asteroids is a huge undertakings. My guess mining would not even start in 2050.

I disagree

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/bullshit-or-no-bullshit-daily-show-neil-degrasse-tyson-video_n_1455363.html

Those are estimates.. I mean if it does happen it will be privatized, + we have no idea what is gonna go down soon.

[oomi0010]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

[sudoku]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

That would be prohibitively expensive in energy and in money.

[Anon136]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

first you find a novel way to crack it up into bits and then you drop the shards into the atmosphere above your giant desert property. maybe no such novel way of doing this exists, but also perhaps it does.

[Anon136]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

That would be prohibitively expensive in energy and in money.

what you need to do is attach thrusters to the asteroid on one of its closer passes by earth, then while it is making its journey around the solar system and back again you use the thrusters to gently "nudge" it in such a manner that on its next close pass by you can lasso it in earths gravity. then you fracture it into bits with explosives or something and rain those bits down over your giant desert property to be collected by a sand sifting harvester. would this be prohibitively expensive? maybe but also maybe not, all of the gold on planet earth is pretty damn valuable.

[iram3130]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

That would be prohibitively expensive in energy and in money.

what you need to do is attach thrusters to the asteroid on one of its closer passes by earth, then while it is making its journey around the solar system and back again you use the thrusters to gently "nudge" it in such a manner that on its next close pass by you can lasso it in earths gravity. then you fracture it into bits with explosives or something and rain those bits down over your giant desert property to be collected by a sand sifting harvester. would this be prohibitively expensive? maybe but also maybe not, all of the gold on planet earth is pretty damn valuable.

Not gonna work, that is very dangerous. Do you want create a meteor shower? When the big chunks reach the ground those will create big craters. Many civilian would die on the process. The chunks would scatter thousands of miles  on the ground and would be very hard to control.

[Anon136]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

That would be prohibitively expensive in energy and in money.

what you need to do is attach thrusters to the asteroid on one of its closer passes by earth, then while it is making its journey around the solar system and back again you use the thrusters to gently "nudge" it in such a manner that on its next close pass by you can lasso it in earths gravity. then you fracture it into bits with explosives or something and rain those bits down over your giant desert property to be collected by a sand sifting harvester. would this be prohibitively expensive? maybe but also maybe not, all of the gold on planet earth is pretty damn valuable.

Not gonna work, that is very dangerous. Do you want create a meteor shower? When the big chunks reach the ground those will create big craters. Many civilian would die on the process. The chunks would scatter thousands of miles  on the ground and would be very hard to control.

yea i dont think you understand how meteors work. no offense i mean everyone cant know about everything there are a lot of things i dont know much about so please dont take it personally. only very very large meteors actually survive the atmosphere long enough to actually impact the ground. also we obviously arnt talking about sticking the worlds largest nuke at the center of the asteroid and blasting it into a thousand random uncontrolled pieces. we are talking about fracturing it at key points with controlled explosions and then guiding these pieces to the intended destination with means other than explosions.

please dont tell me that something is totally imposable simply for your own lack of imagination. it may be imposable, im not going to argue that it isnt. but please dont pretend that you know that this is the case. neither of us knows for sure one way or the other.

[glendall]

Asteroid mining is more likely to happen in space than in Earth. They don't plan on crashing asteroids into the Earth and collecting the resources that way 

It is much more likely they will have space-miners process and extract the ores in space, then transport the refined ores to Earth in shuttles, or via space elevator.

Diamonds would be  next to useless thing to mine. It is much easier to make them on Earth, which we can do, with present technology. The reason why manufactured diamonds are not sold as jewellery is purely do to with marketing and business and monopolies.... man-made diamonds are superior to mined diamonds.

There will be rare elements that could also kick gold of off its pedestal. But I think people are overlooking a big thing: which is, it will be very, very expensive to mine and transport the asteriod ores, which means that it will gradually lower prices  -- the market will not be suddenly flooded with cheap gold. That would not even benefit the mining companies so that would not happen (as is similar to the case with diamonds).

As for substitute scarce metals, I've never read up on the common elements of asteriods, but would imagine that rhodium, platinum, and iridium and osmium would be quite valuable.

If we get to the point technology where mining asteroids and returning the metals is no big thing, and we can make much of what we want from 3d printers, then either a) we will have an overlord class with supreme wealth taking what they want, and most humans will be a slave class to them, with no need or ability to purchase ores      b) we will have radically different non-scarcity based economic system where the situation will be so different that fiat will likely not be exchanged for metals. imho, of course

[iram3130]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

That would be prohibitively expensive in energy and in money.

what you need to do is attach thrusters to the asteroid on one of its closer passes by earth, then while it is making its journey around the solar system and back again you use the thrusters to gently "nudge" it in such a manner that on its next close pass by you can lasso it in earths gravity. then you fracture it into bits with explosives or something and rain those bits down over your giant desert property to be collected by a sand sifting harvester. would this be prohibitively expensive? maybe but also maybe not, all of the gold on planet earth is pretty damn valuable.

Not gonna work, that is very dangerous. Do you want create a meteor shower? When the big chunks reach the ground those will create big craters. Many civilian would die on the process. The chunks would scatter thousands of miles  on the ground and would be very hard to control.

yea i dont think you understand how meteors work. no offense i mean everyone cant know about everything there are a lot of things i dont know much about so please dont take it personally. only very very large meteors actually survive the atmosphere long enough to actually impact the ground. also we obviously arnt talking about sticking the worlds largest nuke at the center of the asteroid and blasting it into a thousand random uncontrolled pieces. we are talking about fracturing it at key points with controlled explosions and then guiding these pieces to the intended destination with means other than explosions.

please dont tell me that something is totally imposable simply for your own lack of imagination. it may be imposable, im not going to argue that it isnt. but please dont pretend that you know that this is the case. neither of us knows for sure one way or the other.

You have a unique idea . I never read anything like that until now.  Hope they don't crash the asteroid near me.  

[Anon136]

Just think one Asteroid with the diameter one kilometer. Can provide all the world iron production for a year, all the world production for gold and silver  for 10 years. All platinum production for a thousand years. And this only for a small asteroid and there are more than 750k other asteriods with same size other even called dwarf planet.

Such an asteroid striking the earth would be equivalent to 1000 hydrogen bombs. Good luck mining the debris from the impact.

They will not catch bring the asteriod near to earth. I think they will mine on the location and only bring back the ores.

That would be prohibitively expensive in energy and in money.

what you need to do is attach thrusters to the asteroid on one of its closer passes by earth, then while it is making its journey around the solar system and back again you use the thrusters to gently "nudge" it in such a manner that on its next close pass by you can lasso it in earths gravity. then you fracture it into bits with explosives or something and rain those bits down over your giant desert property to be collected by a sand sifting harvester. would this be prohibitively expensive? maybe but also maybe not, all of the gold on planet earth is pretty damn valuable.

Not gonna work, that is very dangerous. Do you want create a meteor shower? When the big chunks reach the ground those will create big craters. Many civilian would die on the process. The chunks would scatter thousands of miles  on the ground and would be very hard to control.

yea i dont think you understand how meteors work. no offense i mean everyone cant know about everything there are a lot of things i dont know much about so please dont take it personally. only very very large meteors actually survive the atmosphere long enough to actually impact the ground. also we obviously arnt talking about sticking the worlds largest nuke at the center of the asteroid and blasting it into a thousand random uncontrolled pieces. we are talking about fracturing it at key points with controlled explosions and then guiding these pieces to the intended destination with means other than explosions.

please dont tell me that something is totally imposable simply for your own lack of imagination. it may be imposable, im not going to argue that it isnt. but please dont pretend that you know that this is the case. neither of us knows for sure one way or the other.

You have a unique idea . I never read anything like that until now.  Hope they don't crash the asteroid near me.  

yea as far as i know its my idea. i have no idea if it will ever be done. if i had to guess than id say it probably wont. but the chance that it would was enough to be the tipping point and sell some of my physical and buy crypto. just in case ya know, i wanted to be the first person to begin pricing it in (always better to start pricing something into the market before everyone else if possible). man what a great decision that was.