4 ms·

What the heck is “$10,000 quadrillion”? For anyone who dropped out of grade school, you would write that as “$10 quintillion”.

by KMnO4 3y ago

EA-3167 3y ago
Or more accurately, "It's only worth that as long as it's in space, if you bring it to Earth then it's worth very little, along with all of the iron, nickel and gold on Earth." Talk about crashing markets.
- imtringued 3y ago
  The least it can cost is as much as it's marginal cost of extraction and delivery. These asteroids are so large it would take trillions of dollars to extract all the resources.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > if you bring it to Earth then it's worth very little Years ago I did some back-of-the-envelope commodities analysis on this. (Of course, the firm I worked for didn't represent it as such.) It's worth more than "very little," though obviously not quadrillions of dollars. In the long run, the dominating component of unit costs are refining, not transport. The latter is amortized over a large mass; the former limits the rate at which commodity hits the market. In the short term, measured in tonnes, it would be transport. Scaling such that the short term, in tonnes, is a short amount of time, in present dollars, defines the venture's economies of scale and thus minimum viable configuration.
- manarth 3y ago
  Depending on how quickly it "arrives", it might not just be the markets that are crashing.
  - Clockface12 3y ago
    Well said. :D
  - r00fus 3y ago
    Just don't look up
- LargeTomato 3y ago
  NASA, capable to capturing a $10 quintillion asteroid but, according to the hacker news commenters, completely incapable of making rational economic decisions. These Internet commenters are so smart.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    > NASA, capable to capturing a $10 quintillion asteroid They really aren't capable of capture. It hasn't been done yet, even for much smaller space rocks. This mission will "observe" i.e. fly by or orbit the rock. That's all we're capable of now, so the valuation is quite moot and selling the mission on that basis is close to deceptive.
svnt 3y ago
I prefer exadollars.
- doublerabbit 3y ago
  1 petapound please
LargeTomato 3y ago
You are not the target audience. The lower half of the bell curve of target audience did drop out at grade school.

What the heck is “$10,000 quadrillion”? For anyone who dropped out of grade school, you would write that as “$10 quintillion”.

by KMnO4 3y ago

What the heck is “$10,000 quadrillion”? For anyone who dropped out of grade school, you would write that as “$10 quintillion”.

EA-3167 3y ago

Or more accurately, "It's only worth that as long as it's in space, if you bring it to Earth then it's worth very little, along with all of the iron, nickel and gold on Earth." Talk about crashing markets.

imtringued 3y ago
The least it can cost is as much as it's marginal cost of extraction and delivery. These asteroids are so large it would take trillions of dollars to extract all the resources.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> if you bring it to Earth then it's worth very little Years ago I did some back-of-the-envelope commodities analysis on this. (Of course, the firm I worked for didn't represent it as such.) It's worth more than "very little," though obviously not quadrillions of dollars. In the long run, the dominating component of unit costs are refining, not transport. The latter is amortized over a large mass; the former limits the rate at which commodity hits the market. In the short term, measured in tonnes, it would be transport. Scaling such that the short term, in tonnes, is a short amount of time, in present dollars, defines the venture's economies of scale and thus minimum viable configuration.
manarth 3y ago
Depending on how quickly it "arrives", it might not just be the markets that are crashing.
- Clockface12 3y ago
  Well said. :D
- r00fus 3y ago
  Just don't look up
LargeTomato 3y ago
NASA, capable to capturing a $10 quintillion asteroid but, according to the hacker news commenters, completely incapable of making rational economic decisions. These Internet commenters are so smart.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  > NASA, capable to capturing a $10 quintillion asteroid They really aren't capable of capture. It hasn't been done yet, even for much smaller space rocks. This mission will "observe" i.e. fly by or orbit the rock. That's all we're capable of now, so the valuation is quite moot and selling the mission on that basis is close to deceptive.

svnt 3y ago

I prefer exadollars.

doublerabbit 3y ago
1 petapound please

LargeTomato 3y ago

You are not the target audience. The lower half of the bell curve of target audience did drop out at grade school.