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I've always wondered, once we get into asteroid mining, whether there will be a global "massening" if we bring more matter back to the planet. If the orbit shou

I've always wondered, once we get into asteroid mining, whether there will be a global "massening" if we bring more matter back to the planet. If the orbit should change and you know, cause problems and whatnot.

MagicMoonlight 3y ago
That’s a hilarious idea. It wouldn’t surprise me if we did that. Find 1b tons of gold somewhere and start building houses out of it on earth
- bruce511 3y ago
  In medievil times Alchemy was the search for changing base metals (mostly lead) into gold. Clearly unimaginable riches would follow. What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead. This has happened before. Aluminium used to cost more than silver. The Washington Memorial is capped in aluminium for all of about 9 inches high, at fantastic cost. Development of the Hall process made aluminium plentiful. It's now a cheap house-hold item we discard daily. If we found a billion tons of gold, the value of gold would crater basically to the cost of actually bringing it to earth. We'd find uses for it (its pretty) but it'd make a terrible building material :)
  - onion2k 3y ago
    What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead. Only if the process was commonly known. Alchemists were quite a secretive bunch. For example, if you asked most people to name a famous alchemist they'd probably come up with nothing, despite Isaac Newton being one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_stud...
    - carlmr 3y ago
      >Alchemists were quite a secretive bunch. But they'll surely tell it to their wife and kids at some point. And somebody should leak the recipe. >Isaac Newton Oh. :D
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      > Only if the process was commonly known. It doesn't matter - even if you're the only one to know the trick, once you start dumping large amounts of gold on the market, its price will start to go down. Gold isn't something that gets easily used up, so the more of it is in circulation, the cheaper it gets.
      - theLiminator 3y ago
        You'd still make a ridiculous amount of money before that happened.
        heavenlyblue 3y ago
        About as hypothetical argument as having access to billions of tons of gold that no one knows about but are willing to buy it
      - MrPatan 3y ago
        Steady state thinking. Of course gold would become cheaper, sure. But you will have bought all the actual productive assets first! This is the same trick economists play when saying "inflation doesn't matter". It doesn't in the steady state, but in the meanwhile, I printed the money and gave it to my friends, who do you think is going to end up owning all the hard assets?
        bruce511 3y ago
        In that time "ownership" of assets was a highly fluid concept. Kings nominally owned all the assets already, and as more than a few discovered, loose is the head that wears the crown.
      - 3y ago
  - carlmr 3y ago
    I agree with your analysis, but the process might be the most valuable thing here, getting rid of lead.
  - somehelpful 3y ago
    And that is why they made the stock exchange ;)
  - netrus 3y ago
    This plot point in Goldfinger blew my mind as a teenager (spoiler: Goldfinger does not want to steal gold - he want's to make the gold in Fort Knox radioactive, to raise the value of the gold he has). If there is one important subject that is not that hard to understand, but poorly understood by the general public, it's how markets work. I know many well educated people who make trivial mistakes when thinking about markets.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Finally, toilet seats made of gold can be had by everyone! ;)
  - Etrnl_President 3y ago
    Would make great reactor shielding, especially due to chemical stability compared to lead.
  - Reason077 3y ago
    > "What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead." Not if you're the only guy who's figured out how to do it.
Ekaros 3y ago
Hmm, Earth is losing 60000 tons of atmosphere per year. And this has been going for quite a while. Bringing back stuff might not be great effect.
qsantos 3y ago
The mass of the Earth has no impact on its orbit. Think about it this way: the northern and southern halves of Earth orbits the sun in exactly the same orbit as the full Earth. Now, if we increased the mass of the Sun, however…

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

That’s a hilarious idea. It wouldn’t surprise me if we did that. Find 1b tons of gold somewhere and start building houses out of it on earth

bruce511 3y ago
In medievil times Alchemy was the search for changing base metals (mostly lead) into gold. Clearly unimaginable riches would follow. What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead. This has happened before. Aluminium used to cost more than silver. The Washington Memorial is capped in aluminium for all of about 9 inches high, at fantastic cost. Development of the Hall process made aluminium plentiful. It's now a cheap house-hold item we discard daily. If we found a billion tons of gold, the value of gold would crater basically to the cost of actually bringing it to earth. We'd find uses for it (its pretty) but it'd make a terrible building material :)
- onion2k 3y ago
  What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead. Only if the process was commonly known. Alchemists were quite a secretive bunch. For example, if you asked most people to name a famous alchemist they'd probably come up with nothing, despite Isaac Newton being one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_stud...
  - carlmr 3y ago
    >Alchemists were quite a secretive bunch. But they'll surely tell it to their wife and kids at some point. And somebody should leak the recipe. >Isaac Newton Oh. :D
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Only if the process was commonly known. It doesn't matter - even if you're the only one to know the trick, once you start dumping large amounts of gold on the market, its price will start to go down. Gold isn't something that gets easily used up, so the more of it is in circulation, the cheaper it gets.
    - theLiminator 3y ago
      You'd still make a ridiculous amount of money before that happened.
      - heavenlyblue 3y ago
        About as hypothetical argument as having access to billions of tons of gold that no one knows about but are willing to buy it
    - MrPatan 3y ago
      Steady state thinking. Of course gold would become cheaper, sure. But you will have bought all the actual productive assets first! This is the same trick economists play when saying "inflation doesn't matter". It doesn't in the steady state, but in the meanwhile, I printed the money and gave it to my friends, who do you think is going to end up owning all the hard assets?
      - bruce511 3y ago
        In that time "ownership" of assets was a highly fluid concept. Kings nominally owned all the assets already, and as more than a few discovered, loose is the head that wears the crown.
    - 3y ago
- carlmr 3y ago
  I agree with your analysis, but the process might be the most valuable thing here, getting rid of lead.
- somehelpful 3y ago
  And that is why they made the stock exchange ;)
- netrus 3y ago
  This plot point in Goldfinger blew my mind as a teenager (spoiler: Goldfinger does not want to steal gold - he want's to make the gold in Fort Knox radioactive, to raise the value of the gold he has). If there is one important subject that is not that hard to understand, but poorly understood by the general public, it's how markets work. I know many well educated people who make trivial mistakes when thinking about markets.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Finally, toilet seats made of gold can be had by everyone! ;)
- Etrnl_President 3y ago
  Would make great reactor shielding, especially due to chemical stability compared to lead.
- Reason077 3y ago
  > "What they didn't realise was that turning lead into gold does not make lead as valuable as gold. It makes gold as valuable as lead." Not if you're the only guy who's figured out how to do it.

Ekaros 3y ago

Hmm, Earth is losing 60000 tons of atmosphere per year. And this has been going for quite a while. Bringing back stuff might not be great effect.

qsantos 3y ago

The mass of the Earth has no impact on its orbit. Think about it this way: the northern and southern halves of Earth orbits the sun in exactly the same orbit as the full Earth. Now, if we increased the mass of the Sun, however…