3 ms·

It costs $4k/lb to get something into orbit. Maybe mining for use in space is the way to go. I hear SpaceX might have some plans to build stuff in space in the

• ianai 9y ago
  That makes anything you can “mine” out of orbit worth at least 4k/lb. pretty steep incentive for even the most basic resources.
  • hamilyon2 9y ago
    With right delta v. I mean, if it is in wildely wrong orbit, than it is no more useful than same thing on earth.
    • twic 9y ago
      Ooh, that's interesting. Commodities trading makes use of contract specifications which can include the physical location of delivery [1] - futures for delivery of aluminium to Singapore can be a different price to those for delivery to New Orleans. Perhaps the contract specifications for space commodities will name, not particular places, or even orbits, but delta-V zones. So, the asteroids and the earth-moon L2 point might be in the same band, because it doesn't take much energy to move between them, but the surface of the moon and low earth orbit would be different, because, despite having similar delta-Vs when coming from the asteroids, they are expensive to move between - at least, according to the map [2]. [1] https://www.lme.com/Metals/Non-ferrous/Aluminium-Premiums https://www.lme.com/Metals/Non-ferrous/Aluminium-Premiums [2] https://i.imgur.com/WGOy3qT.png https://i.imgur.com/WGOy3qT.png
• greglindahl 9y ago
  SpaceX is planning on reducing the $/lb by a lot with a fully-reusable launch vehicle. That will make the economics of mining and building in space both better and harder at the same time.