Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
Other asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter are also worth a pretty penny.
See also: NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test successfully hits target asteroid
Asteroid Mining
The asteroid Davida – diameter 326 kilometres – is said to be worth $26,990,000,000,000,000,000 ($27 quintillion) because of its content of nickel, iron, cobalt, nitrogen, ammonia, and hydrogen.
Ah Yes zeitghost, and I seem to remember from the distant days of my childhood, probably in Eagle, a graphic showing the connection of rockets to asteroids to move them around
Interesting SEPAM, the semantics of asteroid/planet definition elude me too.
I suppose a nuclear bomb might do the trick, Stooriefit
I suspect that a technique such as that proposed for the Orion spacecraft might have some legs.
Shedloads of little nukes set off one after the other.
Alternatively, once we get controlled fusion working (hollow larf), it’d be much easier.
And the Orion of which I speak is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
rather than the Saturn V replacement.
A nuclear reactor boiling off asteroid frost through a nozzle is how they do it in Seveneves, and (spoiler alert) it works, if you see crew as expendable. More controllable than bombs. You need reaction mass though, so it helps to have some low melting point mass to chuck out the back. Frost is good (methane or water), nickel and iron less so, so the most valuable rocks are not ideal for shifting about in a controlled way.
If you are using nuclear bombs you struggle to get all that reaction mass going in the direction you require – bombs push out in all directions. Even if you make a shaped nuclear charge you aren’t anywhere near as efficient as a nuclear powered rocket engine.
People have thought about this stuff a lot!
Well it wouldn’t take much energy to bring large chunks back to the atmospere, as you say AnotherDavid, and then we could dump it all on Antarctica.
Well you don’t have to bring it all the way back, Stooriefit, just a bit closer to where it’s convenient to send up a boring machine. Elon might help with one. After all we’ve put some big shit in space – like the station – and something that can be shipped up in parts, assembled and put to work might do the trick. I see there are a number of commercial companies looking at this – it would be very interesting to know their different approaches.
Read “Seveneves” to get a feel for how hard it is to move the orbits of significant masses!
Actually, SEPAM and Denys, I now learn that it’s possible that Psyche was rightfully omitted from the asteroid list because it’s so big it’s classified as a minor planet.
Strange. Looking up Wikipedia:
Davidia: approximately 270–310 km in diameter, mass of (6.64±0.56)×1019 kg
Psyche: over 200 km (120 mi) in diameter, best mass estimate is 2.72±0.75×1019 kg
It is not clear why these are classified differently.
I think you’re casting nasturtiums on my namesake asteroid, SEPAM, Psyche is not quite up to Davida in the asteroid rich list as it consists only of iron and nicket – whereas Davida has cobalt as well as nickel and iron.
What is the biggest spacecraft that has made it back to the earth?
Probably the Space shuttle? How much could that usefully bring back, a few tonnes I would guess? I guess that would make a difference for some metals, but not Nickel or Iron.
I guess you could drop it through the atmosphere and hope to recover what is left, might make a mess though.
Most use would probably be to make spacecraft in space, but mining and refining in space might be an interesting project.
Turn the metal into foil to increase area to mass ratio and then let it sail through the atmosphere. That way you can use it first as a solar sail to get it to Earth space and then recover most of the material.
Denys you’re right about Psyche being wrongly omitted from the list. It’s not worth as much as Davida – only $10 quintillion compared to Davida’s $27 quintillion – but worthy of mention. Hopefully, now that the billionaires are getting into space they’ll find ways of lassooing these little blighters and towing them back here. If that causes metal prices to tank who cares? it will make everything made out of metal cheaper.
My understanding is that Davida’s value derives from mostly iron which in itself is clearly useful. What sets Psyche apart is that it is extremely dense and thus probably the exposed core of a shattered planetesimal. This means Psyche most likely contains astronomical amounts or gold, platinum, lead, high density metals such as osmium, that all command far greater sums than iron.
If they tow them back here I hope their brakes don’t fail … a schoolie error when on tow is to forget that the brake servo isn’t working and run into the back of your rescuer.
The consequences of brake failure when landing an asteroid could be somewhat more severe.
Psyche’s said to be worth $10 quintillion, SEPAM,, still a long way behind Davida’s $26.99 quintillion. But it should be on the list as it’s between Mars and Jupiter.
A rather incomplete list. Consider the largely metallic 16 Psyche — and that’s just for starters. EW should run their non-core articles past me before they publish. I am a technical editor and well versed in the sciences generally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche
Asteroid mining might be worth a lot, but it will also be inherently expensive. There is 9 million kg of gold suspended in seawater and it’s discovery did not measurably affect the price of gold because extractiion costs more than the gold yields.
There are economic, biological, technical and general reasons why it is so prohibitively expensive to mine asteroids, but one thing is for sure, it is not economically viable at todays prices or we’d already be doing it. It will only become viable when the price of the relevant commodity rises to meet the cost of extraction. The cost of extraction will drop with innovation and the price of the relevant commodity will rise with scarcity — not to mention the inflation of the fiat currency it is denominated in; but then, that will equally impact the cost of extraction.
The point is, traders (the guys who actually cause markets to move) see this sort of news and are unfazed; the price of the relevant commodity remains unchanged. If asteroid mining was any real threat to terrestial markets, you would see the market move in anticipation — a phenomenon known as pricing-in or frontrunning.
Why did this make me think of the recent thread on Bitcoin mining ?
I am sure that the price of Nickel would plummet if someone could work out how to get at some of this.
Build a Red Dwarf like spacecraft ??????
Having the metal market tanking brutally is considered a bonus in the US – China trade war. China controls a lot of crucial minerals very much needed in the West. Also tantalum tends to be mined in troubled areas in Africa. Of course the African raw material market would also be obliterated.
Also I thought Psyche was the most valuable asteroid.
especially if they park it on Africa
Naturally, AnotherDavid, effortless superority is our bag, but this appears to be a female asteroid – Davida – and one wonders how she got to be so much richer than the others. Maybe she collides with other asteroids and absorbs their riches – a tarty asteroid.
I see David is worth more than the rest!
Of Course.