3 ms·
There's probably lots of neat uses for gold at the moment that aren't financially viable due to the cost of the raw material.
by encrystation 9y ago
There's probably lots of neat uses for gold at the moment that aren't financially viable due to the cost of the raw material.
- mmjaa 9y agoNot to mention that the idea of things just falling out of the sky when we need them sounds great to me. Seriously, not kidding. Lets push 3D printing so hard all we need to do is send a few drones worth "up there", and oila .. free everything for everyone, forever.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoIt's less fun when you realize that being able to drop any meaningful amount of material from space is equivalent to having a weapon of mass destruction. (This is actually a constant thing in spaceflight, that comes up because of the scales involved. Similarly to that, any engine able to cut down interplanetary travel to reasonable lengths (days, weeks) will have energy output of a WMD, and could be used as such.)
- Neutrion 9y agoAlso the disruption brought by let huge objects falling through the sky will be devastating to atomsphere.
- mmjaa 9y agoClearly we'll work out how to deliver through the atmosphere.
- maxerickson 9y agoRight, but if you make the price of gold fall by 5 or 10 times you are, uh, undermining your own profitability.
- sitkack 9y agoMoney is a proxy. When one has a star trek replicator, money doesn't matter anymore.
- PeterisP 9y agoWhy would the cost decrease? It'd still be more cost-efficient to e.g. mine for gold under the ocean or in the Antarctic rather than send gear up to space to do that. If we had a huge solid gold asteroid (how would that occur?) floating in a very close, very convenient orbit then maybe it would be cost-effective to send a ship to connect, re-orbit and land it without vaporizing; but anything realistic simply wouldn't be worth the launch effort&cost.