4 ms·
> NASA estimates this belt to hold $700 quintillion of bounty. That’s about $100 billion for each person on Earth. Something this article doesn't say is whethe
by kcorbitt 10y ago
> NASA estimates this belt to hold $700 quintillion of bounty. That’s about $100 billion for each person on Earth.
Something this article doesn't say is whether that's the economic value that would be unlocked by bringing all that stuff back to earth, or just a naive calculation of (total quantity of rare earth metals in astroid belt) x (current spot price for said metals). Given the astronomical (ha) value listed, I'd assume the later. But of course, no one could expect the price of anything to remain stable when you're dumping orders of magnitude greater quantities of it onto the market, so a more realistic analysis of the actual economic opportunity would be helpful.
- BWStearns 10y agoRealistically I think the result would be a more civil version of the diamond market. Since there are only a couple players who could bring back anything you would just park your supply in orbit and bring it down when it was profitable. You'd still lower the prices but how much you brought home would be ceilinged by the total market demand. You'd probably bankrupt literally every terrestrial mining operation which wouldn't be the worst from an environmental and quality of life standpoint.
- ant6n 10y agoCost probably would depend on the 'moat', i.e. how easy is it for another player to enter the market. On the other hand, we may get a kind of OPEC of asteroid miners.
- stale2002 10y agoThe problem with cartels like this is that all it takes is a single person to break to cartel, for the whole thing to come crashing down. Someone might even do it as a charity operation.
- xenobioticants 10y agoConsidering that bringing the resources to Earth would still require landing rights, I'd imagine such a cartel would be easy to break by the world's governments.
- clort 10y agoand considering that if the cartel was blocking you, but you had a few hundred thousand tons of metal in orbit.. you could just send down a bit for free..
- kristianp 10y agoGovernments these days compete with each other to pander to corporations. The promise of a few jobs and a few political donations is enough to get a government to do just about anything you want.
- stale2002 10y agoYes, you are right. And these governments compete with each other. For every government supporting cartels there will be a dozen trying to break them, because of how much money you can make by breaking a cartel. Greed still wins, for the betterment of humans.
- geon 10y agoNot in the diamond business. A player who won't conform is simply crushed.
- geon 10y agoNot in the diamond business. A player who won't conform is simply crushed.
- personjerry 10y agoBut where would you store all of it?
- mzw_mzw 10y agoSpace is big. I mean, really big. The orbits that are most useful for our current-day satellites are crowded, of course, but you could stash your asteroid booty anywhere you like. Putting it in orbit around the Moon might not be a bad move.
- kchoudhu 10y agoWhy bother bringing it home at all? Set up orbital factories as well, and ship the finished goods back to Earth via space elevator. Get rid of mining and dirty manufacturing on earth once and for all.
- mooreds 10y agoThis book captivated me as a child and explains many interesting possibilities about manufacturing in space: https://www.amazon.com/third-industrial-revolution-Harry-Stine/dp/0441806643/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/third-industrial-revolution-Harry-Sti... All kinds of interesting processes become feasible in weightlessness. For instance, some kinds of alloys just aren't possible on earth because the metals' densities are so different that they don't mix properly. No so in space.
- jon_richards 10y agoAren't atmospheric elements required for most refining processes?
- pavel_lishin 10y agoCan't you ship it home with a heat shield and a parachute?
- kchoudhu 10y agoSure. But adding ballistic re-entry to your manufacturing process seems a little scary.
- nazka 10y agoSomething even better is to reffined and process everything to raw materials in orbit and then bring them on Earth.
- bbcbasic 10y agoAnd yet the assumptions (unit price * total units) are made for real estate collateral value, bonds, stocks etc. Remind me what Google is worth again :-)
- geon 10y agoThe metals already being in orbit has a value too. Getting metal up in orbit from earth would cost many times the value of materials.