3 ms·

Just skimmed but does this answer the question of getting to and from the surface of earth? Or are we just stockpiling platinum in LEO for some reason?

• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > does this answer the question of getting to and from the surface of earth? Yes. (Deöbiting from LEO is cheap, like 90 m/s for the Space Shuttle, because you can use the atmosphere.)
  • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    … Presumably the problem is mostly getting up…? Is the plan to just drop hunks of platinum or do we need to put reentry vehicles up there?
    • randallsquared 1y ago
      With a relatively small initial investment, you can build reentry vehicles out of the asteroid, depending on the specific composition.
      • pfdietz 1y ago
        Or, just fashion the metal into ingots that are coated with an ablator (carbon, say) and allow them to enter as artificial meteorites. Suitably sized they will hit the ground at reasonable speed and can be dug up.
        • Teever 1y ago
          Even better than carbon use an ablative made out of olivine that can sequester CO2 as it ablates. That way by offloading mining and refining into space to prevent the damage that these activities incur on earth you're also undoing damage to Earth from past human activities.