4 ms·

Could you try phrasing your question a little more specific? I have trouble making sense of what you're getting at.

• glhaynes 15y ago
  Sure: I understand your proposal to be that they should—after getting it to Earth—use the platinum to manufacture and sell products (rather than just selling the raw platinum) so as to maximize the value they extract from it. But that assumes that the platinum is worth (massively) more to them than it would be to the existing manufacturers of the world. Which would seem to only be the case if they were particularly skilled with manufacturing using platinum—and had the designs to do so—in some way that every other manufacturer isn't. To put it another way: there's a reason that most of the world's terrestrial mining companies sell raw materials to manufacturers rather than manufacturing end-user products themselves.
  • skore 15y ago
    True, but it did make me wonder: Maybe they only do that because it IS so much more profitable to just sell it off. Any company that had access to dirt-cheap platinum would surely have a huge market advantage. Furthermore - The companies that mine the platinum may not be the technologically most advanced while Planetary Resources will surely be the most technologically advanced to have dirt-cheap platinum at their hands.