Is asteroid mining feasible?

>not knowing the percentage of each element that results from such an event and realizing the large majority of elements would be iron or lower.

>Not realizing that the percentage is over a huge mass
>Not realizing there are enormous amounts of supernova every day let alone over the lifetime of the universe.

How would all the gold become concentrated into a single mass, rather than being distributed among all the iron and lower elements?

1. Supernova occurs
2. Generates elements up to gold
3. Ejected material blobs together as things tend to do under Newtonian mechanics
4. All the while this material is spinning at large speeds
5. Gold is slowly rotated out of the blob and forms cylindrical asteroid

One of the many ways in which this could happen, it is by far the most simple.

Where does this spinning come from?

You also don't realize the proportions of elements created. The vast majority are going to be iron and below.

>cylindrical asteroid
Now you're just talking out of your ass.

Sounds like you just want to argue if you cant figure out how an object can acquire spin id suggest going back to physics class.

On the topic of cylindrical asteroids you obviously don't keep up.
inverse.com/article/38626-nasa-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua

That particular asteroid is shaped like that because of gravity. Large asteroids are not one solid object, but a lose collection of rubber, so as it approached the sun the pile stretched out.

Now go ahead a find me an example of a solid gold asteroid.

Asteroid mining is feasible, and a decent way to get materials for O'Neill habitats.

We really need to get started on building those and allowing people on earth to emigrate to them, because we're set to reach Kardaschev 1 status in 200-300 years in terms of energy consumption.

If we can't offload that expansion into space, Earth and all of its biodiversity is doomed. Practically all of Earth will eventually end up covered in Solar panels. We need to put both the power demand and the panels in space.

>equations about stuff that is totally conjecture

We don't even know that Super Nova's even happen !
The idea that you can find solid gold billion ton asteroids is nonsense

A supernova occurs once every ~50 years in the milkey way.

Noone said it had to be the size of a small moon, just that it was a mine-able asteroid.
Last I checked there are many galaxies and as such you can't assume there aren't objects foreign to our galaxy within our midst.

All of this cherry picking is pretty cancer desu, OP said that a gold asteroid exists (or can exist) and I've given a valid way in which one can exist.

If you have anything relevant to say I'll gladly discuss but I'm quite tired of the low quality responses with no thought behind them.

Yeah everyone knows that star corpses are 45% platinum and 55% gold

Just like when De Beers made diamonds worthless right?

Until space pirates kill their miners and take the money for themselves

you don't actually need to haul it back to earth
it would be waste of energy to do so
just mine it where it is and send back the things that people are actually buying

Gold and platinum aren't the only metals in asteroids, and they're not the only things of value
you got the rest of the platinum groups, rare earth elements, and organics to use, all of which have different uses
in space, Water is just as valuable as gold, as you need it for both keeping people alive, and as ship fuel, because of that, water will be profitable no matter how much you mine

then you got the construction metals like iron and aluminum, those will be in high demand because everyone will want to have spaceports for their nation/business, mines of their own, and the ships to ferry everything around

>Is asteroid mining feasible?
Yes.
In theory we have the technology. But It requires a big investment money.
However people who have the money like Ellon Musk still screwing up, failing by blowing up rockets.

You are right, foreign objects from a nearby galaxy will be here in a few billion years. Andromeda is the closest and it happens to be coming right for us.

The problem with there being an asteroid made entirely of gold is not of it existing, but of finding it in the first place. Even if there were a "lot" of them, there is far far more other shit than gold out there. And profitability goes WAY down with distance. So a couple million kg of gold would be pointless if it was a Kepler object, or worse, in the oort cloud.

But you suggest it is in Andromeda??? Or even some other galaxy further away?

And it would probably be cheaper to just deorbit the asteroid into an ocean and then mine it there instead of making a ton of trips to and from. For the most part, if you mine stuff in space, it will be to build stuff in space

We have witnessed many supernovas. The fuck are you smoking?

>deorbit asteroid and mine it in the ocean
You know what happens to asteroids upon entry to the atmosphere right? Good luck getting anything worth your space flight cost from a small rock and shittons of metorite vapor distributed in the atmosphere.

It's definitely possible. We are significantly lacking any kind of space infrastructure to support a mining industry currently. The cost of getting material from the asteroid and back to earth would rarely be profitable unless it was platinum or a rare earth element. Profit right now could be taken from putting asteroids in orbit or in Lagrange points of earth to take water from them to be broken down into fuel in space. need things like a space elevator, deep space gateway to make asteroid mining a commercially profitable venture, and yet companies like Planetary Resources are pursuing it already.

now I want to be a space pirate

Getting stuff down out of orbit is hard.

Mining in space will only be feasible once we have colonies in space that can take those materials.

>Getting stuff down out of orbit is hard.
Getting something out of orbit is the path of least resistance.

it will burn

That hasnt stopped the diamond industry from making a profit on diamonds.

so never

You dont sell it all at once retard. You melt it down into bullion bars and sell them one at a time (preferably for cash) maybe a few times a week to as many different buyers as possible. You could probably sell all of it before anyone even noticed theres excess gold in the market. You think someone goes around and counts the worlds gold? Eventually the market would correct and gold would drop in price but by then you already would have made billions.

Have an asteroid.
Let it aggregate more mass, say under late heavy bombardment
Let it melt so that heavy elements sink down, just as the original gold on Earth did
Then (unlike on Earth!) shatter the asteroid.
Leave the core exposed.
Call it Psyche.

>witnessed

Lol no. We every now and then get some extremely noisy signals that show some signs consistent with what a predicted supernova would look like, but in no way is this considered a mature field. In fact, its openly admitted that our supernova knowledge is still incredibly naive, because most of what we observe during suspected supernova events do not fit into current models.

Asteroid mining is totally non-viable for selling on terrestrial markets. It's best for providing material for further orbital construction.

Not to mention that of you somehow brought the golden asteroid in orbit, some butthurt country might try to nuke it, e.g. north korea if they can ever get a missile to work properly

>Place object into tungsten carbide box with parachute attached
>Will never melt at such low temperatures
>????
>profit

We've had the technology since the 70s but humans have collectively decided to stay on Earth forever. We will NEVER colonize space because we literally want to go extinct, and we deserve it.

dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4258042/The-supernova-brightness-100-million-suns.html

>small rock

Keep in mind we are targeting asteroids with a high metal content. Most the the metal would remain after reentry while much of the rock would be blown away.

I was always curious, if we managed to hook up a wire to an asteroid to the moon or earth or some such could the momentum of the asteroid be converted into rotational motion, like on a massive planet wide ball bearing track, and as such be harvested for electricity as we slowly chip away at it eventually releasing it back into space to catch a new one?

Even though daily mail is cancer. Im going to go ahead and say
BTFO
T
F
O

You realize many meteors are iron aka metal right? You are talking out of your ass.

No. Not going into sheer cost of it, friction would destabilize the orbit. Correcting the orbit with rockets would be a massive waste: it would be far more efficient to simply use the fuel to generate steam.

99% chance bringing an asteroid from the outer belt into orbit would just cause it to impact earth and suigenocide the entire planet.

Go for it.

I hope some tech billionaire decides to do this. Just drop rocks on us and end our suffering.

No no it's not feasible to transport a meaningful amount of the asteroid to earth and process it. But we could use the material in asteroids to make mini worlds on said asteroids. Re-purposed asteroids-turned space bases from earth's Lagrange points are possible I think. Maybe eventually we can capture a larger one

It isn't, for quite a number of reasons.
-The materials common in asteroids are ones we already have plenty of on Earth.
-The return-on-investment is shit. (It is expensive to get things into space. It is expensive to move large heavy objects, no matter where you are. Mining equipment is heavy and expensive. Asteroids are large and heavy.)
-How do you picture the asteroid belt? Like that scene in Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back? Where they're deftly flying through a dense, chaotic mess? Because the actual belt is thinner. A lot, LOT thinner. As in: you would not know you were even there, because of the sheer nothingness you'd see. Space is fucking huge, and getting around it takes a long-ass time.
-Assuming you did find 's incredibly unlikely gold asteroid, or one made of some other prized material, what then? People are GOING to know it's there, and nobody owns outer space. "Chip away at it and sell it" doesn't really work - there are too many politics involved. "This is ours because we brought it here." "No, it started in and remains in international space. It belongs to everyone." "But that's dumb!" Too bad. You've got loot, and everyone wants it. Pirate Game Theory comes to mind.

Might have something to do with how much more expensive mining an asteroid would be. If you don't sell a massive amount of product from your asteroid right away in an attempt to keep its value high, you would go bankrupt from the cost of the mining in space

A nice note on the asteroid belt, but I think a majority of the focus is on near earth objects, which there are relatively plenty of.

And then we will raise it as our pet

>There is obviously an enormous amount of profit to be made
No, there isn't.

>There is obviously an enormous amount of profit to be made
That isn't obvious at all.

Great minds think alike

About as feasible as mining the center of the Earth.

There does need to be a lot of legal work done in determining ownership of resources/territory in space, but as of right now the way it basically goes is: if you extract it, you own it.

Like said, the short-term focus would be in near-earth objects and being able to possibly capture them into a stable orbit, and then utilize them for resources - water, titanium, platinum, iron, carbon, etc. (depending on the composition of course).

No shit we have plenty of those here on Earth, but would you rather spend a stupid amount of money just to get it out of our planet's gravity well, or have access to everything you need to build spacecraft + generate fuel in space? Once we figure out how to actually process resources and manufacture in zero-gravity, we'll mostly have eliminated the fundamental barrier to a space-faring civilization, which is the restrictive costs involved in rocket launches. This isn't about just mining and selling back on Earth, although that would be a viable way to secure early funding for such an enterprise.

Regardless this is probably a few decades down the line, but we might as well start sooner than never.

>a few decades down the line,
But I want it NOW!

It really depends, the first guy to mine a solid gold asteroid will be set for life, the twentieth guy to do so probably won't be able to find a buyer for his worthless over-abundant gold.

And what if you spend a billion dollars on towing an asteroid into LEO and then I just go up and start extracting whatever I want from it

>The materials common in asteroids are ones we already have plenty of on Earth.
Yes but very little in the Crust and even for most of that you'd need to dig through a LOT of rock.
And I don't really seem to see tons of gold, platinum.. just lying around randomly so they don't really seem so common

But yes, with current technology you'd basically use all space-mined resources for further space-infrastructure developement.
We might send back some rare earth metals just as a publicity stunt early, but I think actually mining for profit and use on earth would happen much later

There is no need because there are plenty of resources on earth and its relatively cheap to mine them.

DO NOT WORRY COMRADES!!!
The current capitalist system will inevitably collapse, not because of "exploitation", revolution of workers or other bullshit , but simply because it won't be able to handle the lack of scarcity if it continues like this

Communism might need infinity resources to function
But at least it CAN function with infinite resources!

Eventually a glorious united humanity shall rise as a post-scarcity civilization
AND FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM SHALL LEAD US TO A COSMIC PARADISE

forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/01/01/why-we-are-running-out-of-helium-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/#5df662b057ad
>platinum? gold? basically any rare earth metal?

Also energy?

Yes, but only if it is done 100% by robots and the materials stay in space for use in building other things for us AND only after we start to have a functioning economy in space only used in space.

technologyreview.com/s/518046/new-class-of-easily-retrievable-asteroids-discovered/
nextbigfuture.com/2013/08/easily-retrievable-objects-among-near.html

> 2006 RH120, could be sent into orbit around L2 be changing its velocity by just 58 metres per second

use gravity tractor with VASIMIR engines (if they get properly developed and their funding doesn't get cut to shit)

Also, we'd probably send it into lunar orbit or to a lagrange point because of convenience and safety

Not currently, ask again in thirty years.

Because retards waste helium like there is no tomorrow.
And energy is plentiful, either nuclear ir solar

You're better off using the resources in space to build spaceships and selling those to nation-states and corporations. Or build rotating habitats for people to move into who want to leave earth and pursue space-based ventures.

The easy availability of precious metals is a nice bonus, esp platinum which is incredibly useful as a catalyst and anti-corrosion material,but you're probably not pursuing metal trade with earth as your main objective,but creating an industrial base and employment opportunities in space enough to attract people,the support of their needs then will create incentives to sell them stuff and you'll have a full space economy. The standard of living on a sophisticated rotating habitat,the resources you have,the prestige since space will be full of the best of the best and have a metric shitload of high-tech research in propulsion and general technology would make space incredibly attractive for all sorts of people.

>time to put railguns on your asteroid towing craft

If you had a railgun you could just launch the material into a parking orbit around the earth.

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This is the fuck you stupid faggots line, everyone above is a retarded faggot.

People don't realize there are asteroids that are TRILLIONS of dollars worth of value and only a few km in diameter within our solar system.
1198 Atlantis is estimated to be around 40 trillion dollars worth of material, that's roughly half of the worlds estimated GDP.

Even if you spent 500 billion dollars to launch a fleet of rockets as well as teams to the asteroid to drill in massive chutes and dropped in on the earth by slowing it with said rockets, then deploying chutes you would still be TRILLIONS ahead. Before you start bitching about common sense like I know you will, the asteroid in question is only around 4KM in diameter and would take several years to mine, along with several years to properly lower to earth you are talking about several hundred billion dollars a year in profit.

Anyone who thinks this is unfeasible is a retarded man-child.

The #1 commodity to go for is water, not metals or other material. So, first, identify rich sources of water. After that, go to those locations, extract the water and use a portion of it to deliver just the water to desired locations.

but wut if it would cost TRILLIONS to launch the fleet of rockets?

A damn near eternal supply of energy awaits at Jupiter. That doesn't make hydrogen mining currently feasible.

>Getting stuff down out of orbit is hard.
Everything gets used upstairs.

I do believe that soon Astro mineing will be something that is up for grabs like some said it’s a golden opportunity for money

>t. can't into space ecconomics

>spend $500 billion on mining a $9 trillion asteroid to bring it to Earth.
>prices plummet
>$9 trillion is only worth $400 billion now because the market is flooded

Well shit.

>"Muh prices plummet"
>Takes years to mine
>Company outcompetes all mining operations by pricing just below, with a world's supply
>Eventually has monopoly over industry
>"Muh anti-monopoly laws"

Read about the diamond cartel, otherwise you can go kys with your shit posts.

You are confusing science with Austin Powers.

What movie is this
I know I've seen it

>launch the material onto a parking orbit
>your ship now has to correct for the extra momentum it has
>nothing changes
I'm talking tiny railguns for defense, not hurling the asteroid at anything

>lack of scarcity
>infinite resources
laughable

people always want more and will find more lavish ways to expend resources

>-The return-on-investment is shit. (It is expensive to get things into space. It is expensive to move large heavy objects, no matter where you are. Mining equipment is heavy and expensive. Asteroids are large and heavy.)
The most effective use of asteroid mining is to use asteroid minerals for more construction in space. It's much cheaper to use metal that's already in space than it is to haul up every screw, bolt, and sheet.

Not the whole asteroid, just chunks of processed materials. Correct for any offset by firing an equal ammount of slag in the opposite direction.

anyone who thinks this poster is full of shit is instructed to read the following