4 ms·
Sooner or later, this sort of money is just going to become completely meaningless. There is no "$20tril check waiting to be cashed", there is an economic bomb
by evoxed 14y ago
Sooner or later, this sort of money is just going to become completely meaningless. There is no "$20tril check waiting to be cashed", there is an economic bomb in the form of a massive space rock. I'm still very excited and hope they get results but there going to be some pretty large, unforeseen consequences if they succeed.
- gilrain 14y agoThe dollar amount might become meaningless, were it to happen, but they might still be called the "richest company" merely by virtue of controlling such a huge amount of valuable resources.
- ars 14y agoTheir control would be quite short lived. I haven't heard that they have anything that someone else could not do. If this appears very valuable, and especially once proven, you can bet other investors will do the same.
- swombat 14y agoThe "everyone else will catch up" argument is based on the idea that there are plenty of genius rocket scientists who can deliver this project and that it's just a matter of throwing money at the problem. That may be true, but we definitely don't know that for sure. Seems oddly reminiscent of the iPhone/iPad market. How's throwing money around worked out for the competition so far?
- ars 14y ago> Seems oddly reminiscent of the iPhone/iPad market. How's throwing money around worked out for the competition so far? Extremely well: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_SKOREA_EARNS_SAMSUNG http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_SKOREA_EARNS_SAMSU...
- swombat 14y agoI can't read that link from Europe, it just shows a map of the US and asks me to click my state.
- ars 14y agoDoes this one work? http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLwK7mWdjJoxIkAQ6PzbDePD3pfA http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLwK7mWdjJ... Or search for "Smartphones fuel Samsung profit to record".
- noonespecial 14y agoBefore we could use electric furnaces and electrolysis to turn bauxite to aluminum, it was one of the most rare and valuable metals on earth. I for one am looking forward to wrapping leftovers in platinum foil.
- ars 14y agoThe Washington Monument was capped with aluminium because at the time it was as valuable as silver. 2 years later aluminium became a common metal.
- sbucher 14y agoNot sure if it would be such a economic bomb. Assuming there are many mineable asteroids, others would enter the market. So the long term effect would be that the cost of natural resources approaches the marginal cost of extraction. And markets should have time to adjust as there is increasingly better information on what the initial extractions will look like. It will certianly disrupt the commodities sector, ending many companies and giving rise to incredibly large new ones. And the implications of the new commodity prices would ripple through the rest of the economy. I think it will seem like a bomb to those companies displaced, but for the economy as a whole not as much.
- chii 14y agoI would say that if space mining is more efficient (both productivity wise and/or environmental wise), then doing it will be better overall for the whole of earth.