4 ms·

More so the economics have to work out, the author points multiple times to profitability and ROI. Is it profitable to invest trillions of dollars into... Aste

by afh1 2y ago

More so the economics have to work out, the author points multiple times to profitability and ROI. Is it profitable to invest trillions of dollars into... Asteroid mining? Vs cheaply mining the earth? Maybe when there's so little to mine here and rocket fuel is virtually free...

thriftwy 2y ago
You will get access to many order of magnitudes of minerals out there. You answer to it "we don't need that much, and it's not where we can use it". Which is basically Emperor's speech from the linked article.
- bluGill 2y ago
  > many order of magnitudes of minerals out there. There are less than 100 useful elements on the periodic table. Everything else is a molecule that we can make from one of the above atoms. We mine for gems, but even then lab grown gems are competitive in price. We mine for energy (oil, coal). We mine for sand where we mostly care about cheap (specific properties matter, but in general you can find something local that is good enough and transport is cheaper). Most of the rest we are separating out the raw atoms and then recombining into the exact allow we want. For gems you might be able to sell this is from whatever asteroid. I'm not in marketing but I can see someone paying extra for that. Everything else either cheap is important - the energy needed to get it to earth counts against you - or we want the raw atoms in pure form.
  - thriftwy 2y ago
    Space minerals are cheap by the bulk if you use them in space. But that's alao true for fruit of industrialization. Railway and steel mills make more steel mills and railway.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      It will take a lot of lifting earth stuff into orbit before we have useful mills in space to refine those metals. Maybe eventually you will be correct, but current human lifetimes space minerals are very expensive.
      - thriftwy 2y ago
        Same with industrialization. Awfully huge down payment.

by afh1 2y ago

thriftwy 2y ago

You will get access to many order of magnitudes of minerals out there. You answer to it "we don't need that much, and it's not where we can use it". Which is basically Emperor's speech from the linked article.

bluGill 2y ago
> many order of magnitudes of minerals out there. There are less than 100 useful elements on the periodic table. Everything else is a molecule that we can make from one of the above atoms. We mine for gems, but even then lab grown gems are competitive in price. We mine for energy (oil, coal). We mine for sand where we mostly care about cheap (specific properties matter, but in general you can find something local that is good enough and transport is cheaper). Most of the rest we are separating out the raw atoms and then recombining into the exact allow we want. For gems you might be able to sell this is from whatever asteroid. I'm not in marketing but I can see someone paying extra for that. Everything else either cheap is important - the energy needed to get it to earth counts against you - or we want the raw atoms in pure form.
- thriftwy 2y ago
  Space minerals are cheap by the bulk if you use them in space. But that's alao true for fruit of industrialization. Railway and steel mills make more steel mills and railway.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    It will take a lot of lifting earth stuff into orbit before we have useful mills in space to refine those metals. Maybe eventually you will be correct, but current human lifetimes space minerals are very expensive.
    - thriftwy 2y ago
      Same with industrialization. Awfully huge down payment.