Asteroid Mining

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I saw a report last year that a planet made entirely out of diamonds was found.

Let's mine that thing! Sure, it would take 20 years to reach that planet but boy would it be worth it! :drool: :wink:
 
I've heard about that thing to. So cool!
I wonder how much that would drive down the market though.... or maybe just by virtue of having to go into space to get it, it won't affect it at all.
Either way, super fascinating stuff
 
How many more posts until I find out that this thread was just the result of a mistranslation of a scientist saying, "wouldn't it be cool if we could mine an asteroid?" in Slavic
 

It seems like a gimmick to me. The technological challenges presented deal with the laws of physics themselves, the costs are orders of magnitude beyond where they need to be, and I'm incredibly skeptical that they'll ever be driven down. It seems like a far more economical venture to invest in recycling rare earth minerals or finding ways around needing them.
 
It seems like a gimmick to me. The technological challenges presented deal with the laws of physics themselves, the costs are orders of magnitude beyond where they need to be, and I'm incredibly skeptical that they'll ever be driven down. It seems like a far more economical venture to invest in recycling rare earth minerals or finding ways around needing them.

this is true, recently I have become somewhat disenchanted with too much money and expectations about space. I do find it very interesting, and there are spin off benefits. But human kind living off earth is really silly, except for fiction writers.
 
It seems like a gimmick to me. The technological challenges presented deal with the laws of physics themselves, the costs are orders of magnitude beyond where they need to be, and I'm incredibly skeptical that they'll ever be driven down. It seems like a far more economical venture to invest in recycling rare earth minerals or finding ways around needing them.

I agree with this. I don't expect asteroids to be mined 10 years from now because of the expense. Maybe in 50 or 100 years, they might be.
 
I have a friend who is majoring in aeronautical engineering.

I talked to him a couple of weeks ago. He said they had disccused, in
class, about towing asteroids and placing them in orbit to mine.

Not a good idea since they might eventually fall to earth they decided.

He does, however, believes this will one day be a reality.
 
They'll only fall to Earth if they don't travel fast enough. Seems like a simple mathematical equation can solve that problem, no?
 
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