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I suspect not much will change. The Delta-V requirements for sending precious metals back to earth is insanely high. And, you’d be trying to send back some of t

I suspect not much will change. The Delta-V requirements for sending precious metals back to earth is insanely high. And, you’d be trying to send back some of the heaviest elements. But what point would that serve if you were to simply put the gold into an underground vault? I imagine any mined minerals would stay in orbit and people would “own” that material while never taking possession of it. It’s not too different from what we do today. If you buy gold for your IRA you’re basically purchasing a share of some gold hoard you’re never going to see.

HWR_14 6y ago
> The Delta-V requirements for sending precious metals back to earth is insanely high. Sending gold down to earth is very cheap. As a bonus, you can also take out a city you are tired of. In addition to owning orbiting gold, I imagine the real use will be to feed orbital factories, to produce satellites/space stations/rockets in orbit. Everyone on a space station can have a golden toilet. (edited: typo fix)
- deepsun 6y ago
  Ackshually, sending _down_ is often more expensive to sending _up_. For example, if you want to burn something from Earth orbit in the Sun, you need ~30km/s, but to send it _up_, out of Solar system -- only ~15km/s. I recommend Kerbal Space Program game, it's really fun to do orbital maneuvers there.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Come on. Retrograde burns are cheap compared to sheer amount of fuel needed to escape real sized atmosphere not the tiny KSP one. (There are mods for realism there.) Oh, and instead of burning you can use solar sails too. Or shoot lasers or explosives at them to vaporize and give them momentum. The biggest problem is actually getting to the rocks, chunking them and then not causing a rerun of the movie Armageddon. (Which made changing asteroid direction seem way too easy.) Once the rock is on a trajectory, it will be rather hard to deflect in time, and even then could collide later on. Or hit a newly deployed space station. Once you fire it, you will end up ruining someone's day, somewhere and some time. It's a weapon of mass destruction.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    They referred to "sending down" in the context of "sending down to earth". It's not much use to spend effort mining gold just to haul it into the sun.

HWR_14 6y ago

> The Delta-V requirements for sending precious metals back to earth is insanely high. Sending gold down to earth is very cheap. As a bonus, you can also take out a city you are tired of. In addition to owning orbiting gold, I imagine the real use will be to feed orbital factories, to produce satellites/space stations/rockets in orbit. Everyone on a space station can have a golden toilet. (edited: typo fix)

deepsun 6y ago
Ackshually, sending _down_ is often more expensive to sending _up_. For example, if you want to burn something from Earth orbit in the Sun, you need ~30km/s, but to send it _up_, out of Solar system -- only ~15km/s. I recommend Kerbal Space Program game, it's really fun to do orbital maneuvers there.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Come on. Retrograde burns are cheap compared to sheer amount of fuel needed to escape real sized atmosphere not the tiny KSP one. (There are mods for realism there.) Oh, and instead of burning you can use solar sails too. Or shoot lasers or explosives at them to vaporize and give them momentum. The biggest problem is actually getting to the rocks, chunking them and then not causing a rerun of the movie Armageddon. (Which made changing asteroid direction seem way too easy.) Once the rock is on a trajectory, it will be rather hard to deflect in time, and even then could collide later on. Or hit a newly deployed space station. Once you fire it, you will end up ruining someone's day, somewhere and some time. It's a weapon of mass destruction.
- majewsky 6y ago
  They referred to "sending down" in the context of "sending down to earth". It's not much use to spend effort mining gold just to haul it into the sun.