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Asteroid mining is wildly uneconomical. There is no material to be found in large quantities on any asteroid in the solar system whose value justifies the devel
by kibwen 2y ago
Asteroid mining is wildly uneconomical. There is no material to be found in large quantities on any asteroid in the solar system whose value justifies the development and installation costs of the infrastructure needed to get that material back to Earth.
If you're building a megastructure in space, that's a different story. But please understand that mining gold or platinum from asteroids, at (literally) astronomical cost, will not do anything to advance the state of life on Earth except, at best, reduce the price of gold and platinum, which are not societal bottlenecks.
- BurningFrog 2y agoPerhaps. But I'd be more convinced if you gave some arguments. This article tells a very different story: https://www.cnet.com/science/rare-asteroids-near-earth-may-become-targets-for-space-mining/ https://www.cnet.com/science/rare-asteroids-near-earth-may-b... Platinum has a lot of industrial uses today at $1000/oz: https://market-news-insights-jpx.com/ose/commodities/article005031/ https://market-news-insights-jpx.com/ose/commodities/article... At $10/oz it could be used for vastly more purposes.