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Against all odds, an asteroid mining company appears to be making headway
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoHurrah for these guys! Even a modest win could mean untold resources available. Many hurdles remain. Projecting enough energy-generating capacity to do ore refining, smelting and so on (megawatts not milliwatts). Moving significant mass of valuable resources into accessible orbit. Solving the dust problem (it doesn't blow away or drop away outside a significant gravity field in space, it just hangs around, fouling everything). Then, there's using the resultant material. Either try to drop it down to Earth where existing factories want it. Or develop an entire space-based industrial complex to use the material. Neither has a quick solution. I favor, use the material right where it's extracted. The most valuable place to have metal is in orbit - it costs thousands of dollars per kg to boost anything to orbit. You have something in orbit - leave it there! Use it to develop further space-based industry! We may find ourselves in some years hence with two economies - dirtside, and space-based. With entirely different cost profiles and entirely separate from each other!