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Imagine hijacking a 100-meter moon made of rare earth metals like gold, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, etc. etc. More than enough to under write the mis

Imagine hijacking a 100-meter moon made of rare earth metals like gold, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, etc. etc. More than enough to under write the mission and pay for a moon base.

Terr_ 9y ago
Unless you did it very secretly and slowly you'd might crash the market though.
devrandomguy 9y ago
Imagine heating and spinning it into a thin foil disk, and then curving it into a slight parabola by gently accelerating the center point away from the sun. Solar-cooker death-ray for anyone who disputes your claim!
DrScump 9y ago
The trick is getting it through the atmosphere intact.
- SCAQTony 9y ago
  The Apollo module was 20,000-kg. We could do it in 50,000-lbs chunks but we would have to process it on the moon first so it wouldn't crater when it landed. If the commodities market tanks, well, we'll value add it by selling it as "all weather platinum or gold siding" at Home Depot. ;-) Apollo weight info: https://www.google.com/search?q=apollo+commad+module+weight&oq=apollo+commad+module+weight&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.6655j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=apollo+commad+module+weight&...
  - Gravityloss 9y ago
    You can just make a flattish shape out of it and most likely it will enter just fine.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    Your link says 5,500 kg for the Command module, which is the only part that re-entered. And of that 5,500kg, maybe 300-400kg was actual payload (astronauts and samples).
- pamqzl 9y ago
  Not a real problem, you'll only lose the outermost layers going through the atmosphere. The biggest problem is what happens when it lands. And also what happens to whatever it lands on.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    You can double selling asteroid insurance.
arihant 9y ago
If we go grab a moon sized ball of gold, gold will lose most of its value. It'll be the next Aluminium.
- labster 9y ago
  That much gold would still be worth it for electronic and spaceflight applications. Gold's like a better copper or silver there. And let's not forget the most important application, stereo plug connectors. For platinum or iridium, making it cheaper there would enable all sorts of catalytic chemical processes that are prohibitively expensive now. If abundant enough, new demand will keep the bottom of the market from falling out.
  - dnautics 9y ago
    Gold is already not a major expense in electronics. Platinum is currently cheaper than gold. Most pgm catalysts are capable of ~< .1% catalyst loading (e.g. monsanto and cativa processes), and the catalytic metals are easily recovered.
    - labster 9y ago
      I'd like to believe you about Pt and Ir catalysts, but I just had a chemistry PhD student complaining to me that some paper's processes were too uneconomical because of needing too many platinum atoms in the catalyst. The point was about new processes being viable, not existing techniques.
  - russdill 9y ago
    They actually just plate connectors typically, I think with around 7µm of gold. And no, gold is not a better copper or silver. Both silver and copper are more conductive than gold (then followed by aluminum). Gold is excellent for contact points though as it does not tarnish. Silver conducts heat and electricity the best of the three, but tarnishes the most easily, so it can have issues with high frequency signals as most of the signal travels on the outer surface. If both silver and copper were the same price as copper, it'd probably be silver that would see the most increase in use in electrical applications. During the Manhattan project, there was a shortage of copper and cost was not an option. 430 million troy ounces of silver from the West Point Bullion Depository was melted down and used to make magnetic coils. At the end of the project, it was all returned, minus 120 oz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron
Tuna-Fish 9y ago
Pet peeve: > rare earth metals like gold, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium Not one of those is a rare earth metal. The complete list of rare earth metals: cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), yttrium (Y). Rare earths are also, despite the name of the group, not particularly rare or expensive, and it would never make sense to go mine for them in space. (The short-lived supply crunch that brought them into public eye was caused by the Chinese first effectively subsidizing supply to the point where all other suppliers had to close, and then restricting exports. Since mines take several years to spin up, this caused some disruption until production in the rest of the world caught up. Supplies of REE are found practically everywhere.) I know that you didn't actually mean rare earths, you just meant rare metals in general. However, calling them rare earths is approximately as wrong as calling C# C or calling Javascript Java. It's really grating.
- SCAQTony 9y ago
  Well, that shows me! ;-) Thank you, some of these metals I have never heard of.
  - BurningFrog 9y ago
    Well, they're quite rare :)
8_hours_ago 9y ago
Peter Diamandis[0] has repeatedly predicted that the world's first trillionaire will be made by mining asteroids. Planetary Resources[1] is at least one company that is attempting to do it. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Diamandis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Diamandis [1]: http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/ http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/

Imagine hijacking a 100-meter moon made of rare earth metals like gold, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, etc. etc. More than enough to under write the mission and pay for a moon base.

Terr_ 9y ago

Unless you did it very secretly and slowly you'd might crash the market though.

devrandomguy 9y ago

Imagine heating and spinning it into a thin foil disk, and then curving it into a slight parabola by gently accelerating the center point away from the sun. Solar-cooker death-ray for anyone who disputes your claim!

DrScump 9y ago

The trick is getting it through the atmosphere intact.

SCAQTony 9y ago
The Apollo module was 20,000-kg. We could do it in 50,000-lbs chunks but we would have to process it on the moon first so it wouldn't crater when it landed. If the commodities market tanks, well, we'll value add it by selling it as "all weather platinum or gold siding" at Home Depot. ;-) Apollo weight info: https://www.google.com/search?q=apollo+commad+module+weight&oq=apollo+commad+module+weight&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.6655j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=apollo+commad+module+weight&...
- Gravityloss 9y ago
  You can just make a flattish shape out of it and most likely it will enter just fine.
- DrScump 9y ago
  Your link says 5,500 kg for the Command module, which is the only part that re-entered. And of that 5,500kg, maybe 300-400kg was actual payload (astronauts and samples).
pamqzl 9y ago
Not a real problem, you'll only lose the outermost layers going through the atmosphere. The biggest problem is what happens when it lands. And also what happens to whatever it lands on.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  You can double selling asteroid insurance.

arihant 9y ago

If we go grab a moon sized ball of gold, gold will lose most of its value. It'll be the next Aluminium.

labster 9y ago
That much gold would still be worth it for electronic and spaceflight applications. Gold's like a better copper or silver there. And let's not forget the most important application, stereo plug connectors. For platinum or iridium, making it cheaper there would enable all sorts of catalytic chemical processes that are prohibitively expensive now. If abundant enough, new demand will keep the bottom of the market from falling out.
- dnautics 9y ago
  Gold is already not a major expense in electronics. Platinum is currently cheaper than gold. Most pgm catalysts are capable of ~< .1% catalyst loading (e.g. monsanto and cativa processes), and the catalytic metals are easily recovered.
  - labster 9y ago
    I'd like to believe you about Pt and Ir catalysts, but I just had a chemistry PhD student complaining to me that some paper's processes were too uneconomical because of needing too many platinum atoms in the catalyst. The point was about new processes being viable, not existing techniques.
- russdill 9y ago
  They actually just plate connectors typically, I think with around 7µm of gold. And no, gold is not a better copper or silver. Both silver and copper are more conductive than gold (then followed by aluminum). Gold is excellent for contact points though as it does not tarnish. Silver conducts heat and electricity the best of the three, but tarnishes the most easily, so it can have issues with high frequency signals as most of the signal travels on the outer surface. If both silver and copper were the same price as copper, it'd probably be silver that would see the most increase in use in electrical applications. During the Manhattan project, there was a shortage of copper and cost was not an option. 430 million troy ounces of silver from the West Point Bullion Depository was melted down and used to make magnetic coils. At the end of the project, it was all returned, minus 120 oz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron

Tuna-Fish 9y ago

Pet peeve: > rare earth metals like gold, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium Not one of those is a rare earth metal. The complete list of rare earth metals: cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), yttrium (Y). Rare earths are also, despite the name of the group, not particularly rare or expensive, and it would never make sense to go mine for them in space. (The short-lived supply crunch that brought them into public eye was caused by the Chinese first effectively subsidizing supply to the point where all other suppliers had to close, and then restricting exports. Since mines take several years to spin up, this caused some disruption until production in the rest of the world caught up. Supplies of REE are found practically everywhere.) I know that you didn't actually mean rare earths, you just meant rare metals in general. However, calling them rare earths is approximately as wrong as calling C# C or calling Javascript Java. It's really grating.

SCAQTony 9y ago
Well, that shows me! ;-) Thank you, some of these metals I have never heard of.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  Well, they're quite rare :)

8_hours_ago 9y ago

Peter Diamandis[0] has repeatedly predicted that the world's first trillionaire will be made by mining asteroids. Planetary Resources[1] is at least one company that is attempting to do it. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Diamandis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Diamandis [1]: http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/ http://www.planetaryresources.com/asteroids/