As much as I'm a fan of space exploration, it's a bit silly to say that an asteroid is worth $20 trillion. The ore in an asteroid, REFINED, is worth that much.

As much as I'm a fan of space exploration, it's a bit silly to say that an asteroid is worth $20 trillion. The ore in an asteroid, REFINED, is worth that much. It's a fair bit of work to move that ore from pt A to pt B, crush it, smelt it, refine it, anneal it, etc. A cubic kilometer of sea water is worth a similarly preposterous amount ... and yet, noone has become a trillionaire by refining sea water. It costs more to do it than the minerals are worth. Will it happen some day? Sure. Is it relevant today? No.