Asteroid Mining: Not as Crazy as it Sounds

This sounds very familiar to the Glomar Explorer Howard Hughes built.

a.k.a. Project Azorian

I feel a conspiracy theory is about to be hatched.

From the article: "According to Planetary Resources, there could be as much platinum in a single asteroid as humanity has mined in all of history."

Note to self: sell platinum stock/metal.

pssst, wanna buy some genuine asteroid rock $1000 an oz? How about some genuine meteorite?$11,050. 450gms

http://compare.ebay.com/like/200581530275?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y&cbt=y

certificate of authenticity add $2....

These aren't just rocks,(cue spooky music) the're rocks from SPACE!!!

Now I know what yer thinkin', isn't the Earth just a bunch of space rocks all jumbled together,,,,well yes, but these are new space rocks,,and the're better....Well how do I know these came from space? Oh that's right they all did....Well how do I know it's new? Well just look at it,,,,it's strange(cue music) it's wavy, it's, it's ok just move along kid...next, step right up folks, own a piece of space....

What many critics of this plan seem to miss is this: If we as a species are to survive the next fifty years, maybe even the next twenty-five years, we will need to do at least four different things. One, find a new renewable, non-polluting energy source. Two, not kill each other fighting over this technology, i.e. share the wealth. Three, find new resources. Four, conserve and use what we have a lot wiser than we have.

Folks, the asteroids have more raw materials of every conceivable type than we have EVER mined on Earth! And should we mine the cometary belt, the Oort cloud, we will have access to more water than in every river on this planet.

Getting to it is a problem, but not impossible. Getting it back is not. Just slow it's orbit, the sun's gravity will do the rest.

As for an energy source, He3 can be mined on the moon, or collected directly from the solar wind. Place a large charged grid outside the Earth's magnetic field, and ship the HE3 back to Earth. The Sun produces millions of tons of HE3 per day. It is the only known method of sustained controllable fusion that can be made to work on earth.

As far as not killing each other, I will leave that to the politicians and religious leaders, I hope they are up to the task.

Regards Dragon

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What sort of process produces extraordinary amounts of platinum etc. in asteroids?

Like all heavy elements, the rare earth elements were created in the late evolution stages in the cores of stars and blown into deep space during supernovae explosions. For the stuff that makes up the Earth, these would have been supernovae explosions from 6 to 12 billion years ago.

One thing about this that puzzles me is that most meteorites that hit the Earth are either carbonaceous chondrites (low in metals) or nickel-iron. I've not heard of very many meteorites containing precious metals. I would expect that most asteroids have similar compositions.

Like Phoenix911, I thought of Howard Hughes and the Glomar incident. (Well, my evil twin conspiracy theorist inside me did.)

"What sort of process produces extraordinary amounts of platinum etc. in asteroids?"

Very , VERY big wind, full of lots of hot air. Quite effective at extracting large amounts of cash from "a cadre of somewhat eccentric billionaires"...

Actually (theoretically) there MUST be lots of literal 'gold-mines' (and other heavier elements as well) floating around our solar system.

My money says that it's pretty unlikely that they exist in any different concentrations on any given ("target") asteroid than they do here on earth (or Mars or Venus, etc).

But, 'hey' ... somebody's gotta spend the $$ to find out for sure...!

That's about the size of it.

Imagine spending, oh pick a really big dollar amount, and find out that all of the asteroids selected as likely candidates are just big rocks?

Do you keep going in hopes of something of value, or cut your losses? I thought it wasn't about the money.

But that's just the point, the "rocks", are worth their weight in gold! You can sell them on Ebay! Maybe someday in real time straight from space....

I'm not sure that is the point...

If an asteroid yields Pt, Au, Ta... will these be more valuable (more expensive) than that which came from terrestrial sources? How, after initial transfer of ownership, could you document such origin? I thought the point was not necessarily to run the prices up, but perhaps even drop the prices due to increased supply. No?

Well all you have to do is check the prices on Ebay, meteorites are bought and sold on a daily basis...This for example...

A meteorite that fell in Argentina in 1951, at least 680 kg, now selling at around $1000.US an oz...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquel_(meteorite)

Esquel meteor slice...

Now an unknown asteroid would probably sell for more...It's like coin collecting, the raw material is worth such and such and then you add the historic significance to that, the rarity, scientific value and market demand....If you are supplying a market exclusively (or almost so), you don't flood that market to drop the prices, you trickle feed it....Like DeBeers and their diamonds...

SolarEagle I'm not disputing that at all... I would LOVE to have a small piece of meteorite. To hold a piece of something in your hand, pehaps from the beginning of time. I simply cannot afford the prices they command. After all, for a general citizen of the earth, at the end of the day a meteorite is just a rock.

As you say, one thing that makes them so expensive is the rarity. Limited and, more or less, finite supply. The current business model trickles in a very small amount of new product every year, and that supply is irregular. What happens to the price of space rocks if, all of a sudden, the supply is two hundred fold the current supply, and we will go get some more next month? I guess the supply might be trickled instead of a mass release... they are telling us it isn't about the money.

Here's a bunch of meteorites for under $10. free ship

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Meteorites-Tektites-/3239/i.html

I've got a yard full of rocks that are millions of years old. All they've done for me so far, is to chink up my lawnmower blades.

"the "rocks", are worth their weight in gold"...

Then again , gold is worth its weight in gold, whether dug-outta-the-ground, or dredged-up from the sea bottom. ...

Either way, one can enjoy the excitement of the hunt without spending a fortune on 'spaceships/spacesuits', mega-tons of fuel, astronomical insurance rates () ... and fear of being "taken-out" by a piece of space debris, or the proverbial pebble hurtling towards our planet at three times the speed of a bullet ... (which would easily burn-up in the atmosphere, if you hadn't been "out there, deflecting it"...)!

Just sayin' ...

"It would be the first time in Earth's history that a species existed with the capability to deflect a dangerous space object." - ever get the feeling an author is a few words short of the target for the article?

Deflection by exploration?

How do we know one of these guys isn't secretly a Dr. Evil, who plans to blackmail the Earth for a million dollars or he'll smash some big city with a space rock?

"How do we know..." - sadly, we don't . You could be right .

_{But it's a view that's verging a bit close to conspiracy theory.}

riiiiight