I flipped on the history channel the other night and.....

BigRed · December 17, 2008 8:49PM

they were talking about meteors or comets and about how someday in the furture how they would be able to land on them and extract metals from them like iron ore and platinum and other metals. I only caught the last 5 min. of this show, did anyone else see it. If this happens then these metals would not be rare anymore, the universe is a big place. Your thoughts?

rgCoinGuy · December 17, 2008 10:01PM

Have you priced moon dust lately? I would think in our lifetime, this will not affect rarity.

lathmach · December 18, 2008 7:22AM

<< <i>they were talking about meteors or comets and about how someday in the furture how they would be able to land on them and extract metals from them like iron ore and platinum and other metals. I only caught the last 5 min. of this show, did anyone else see it. If this happens then these metals would not be rare anymore, the universe is a big place. Your thoughts? >>

You might be onto something here, BigRed.
It would really have an impact on things if iron ore wasn't rare anymore.
Geeze, just think of all the things that could be made from iron or steel. Boggles the mind.

Ray

MoneyLA · December 18, 2008 9:00AM

why not? can you buy a futures contract on the first delivery ??

BBQnBLUES · December 18, 2008 9:09AM

Wasn't this the plot to a movie with Bruce Willis ?

rgCoinGuy · December 18, 2008 9:16AM

<< <i>why not? can you buy a futures contract on the first delivery ?? >>

Better yet, can you short it?

BigRed · December 18, 2008 9:09PM

<< <i>

<< <i>they were talking about meteors or comets and about how someday in the furture how they would be able to land on them and extract metals from them like iron ore and platinum and other metals. I only caught the last 5 min. of this show, did anyone else see it. If this happens then these metals would not be rare anymore, the universe is a big place. Your thoughts? >>

You might be onto something here, BigRed.
It would really have an impact on things if iron ore wasn't rare anymore.
Geeze, just think of all the things that could be made from iron or steel. Boggles the mind.

Ray >>

Of course I was talking about the platinum being rare and I would assume they would be extracting gold and the other precious metals. This was not something that was way in the future but maybe just a few years away.

LALASD4 · December 19, 2008 6:32AM

The cost of mining them would be too high. Or they could be radioactive.

Walmann · December 19, 2008 6:37AM

The brings up the exciting possiblity of Comet Coinage made from...
Would it be okay for these coins to be cleaned if using Comet?

fishcooker · December 19, 2008 9:31AM

Heck, use re-entry to refine it and you may be on to something.

DoubleEagle59 · December 19, 2008 11:32PM

if it ever does happen, it's a LONG time away.

Not to worry about it.

fastrudy · December 19, 2008 11:59PM

I mentioned this about two years ago. About 10 years ago, there was an article in Scientific American that predicted economic chaos if the mining of near Earth asteroids were to proceed unregulated. Remember that 150 years ago Aluminum was a 'rare' metal worth 1000's of dollars per pound. It is technologically possible to send a robot miner to land on a near Earth asteroid and mine it to death. Some of these asteroids have an assay that indicates the %age of gold (to name but one heavy metal) better than the assay of the best gold mines on Earth. Large mining firms can afford this and the article indicates that the amount of gold produced by mining just one of these can wreak havoc on the price of commodities. IIRC, Seagrams queried NASA about the possibility of 'mining' the ethanol cloud in Sagittarius (several cubic light years of gaseous booze). This is far fetched, but mining in our Solar System is a definite possibility now and in the future.
The Earth has a differentiated composition, ie., the heavy metals are concentrated in the center and a very small amount of gold makes its way to the near surface where we mine it. A differentiated asteroid when it collides with another might split apart and the heavy metals are within reach of the miners on the resulting asteroid pieces. We can currently do this, but we can't drill past five miles or so on Earth to mine the gold near the center....that remains too difficult.
Did I mention that my other love is Astronomy?

fishcooker · December 20, 2008 11:13PM

We've drilled holes well beyond 30,000 ft.

fastrudy · December 21, 2008 12:04AM

We've drilled holes well beyond 30,000 ft.

But are they mines? No, the deepest hole is 7.5 miles deep, nine inches in diameter and had to be abandoned because of high temperatures (365 degrees Farenheit). The Russians spent 24 years drilling that one.

fishcooker · December 21, 2008 1:41AM

Well that's just silly. 365 F is nothing remarkable. We do those every day. You reallly have to get above 450-500 F before temperature is a technological problem, from a drilling standpoint. And 24 years? What were they doing, scooping it by hand? Rope and bucket?

fastrudy · December 21, 2008 4:03AM

link

COALPORTER · December 21, 2008 6:11AM

I suspect that is why they are studing Mars for signs of past life..possible oil?

fastrudy · December 21, 2008 8:34AM

No, possible DNA and evolution gaps to be filled, it would be nice to know if Earthlings are 'special' or not. By the time they tap the oil on Mars(?) and Titan, we will have bypassed its effective use as a fuel IMHO.

Bear · December 23, 2008 9:33AM

I do not want to mess with

anything that was able to

kill the dinosaurs.

joebb21 · December 30, 2008 1:40AM

anybody have any idea how much it would cost to get to ANY asteroid? fuel and technology cost just to launch istens of millions of dollars. Add to that the cost of the computer systems needed to stay on top of this robot/spaceship- add another couple of HUNDRED MILLION dollars and you also need to land on an asteroid thats not flying but floating... oh the point is itll cost BILLIONS IF NOT TRILLIONS to get metals from asteroids.(and you think you can send ships large enough to make a profit??) Im not holding my breath

GoldenEyeNumismatics · December 30, 2008 5:53AM

Mining any extraterrestrial bodies any time in the next half century is preposterous. If there were bars of platinum sitting on a meteor or asteroid it would be many times more expensive to retrieve them than the metal itself would be worth.

There is a single exception. There is a isotope of helium believe to be present in significant quantities on the moon. This isotope has huge potential as a form of clean energy, and only a minute quantity is necessary to produce a tremendous amount of electricity. It may be profitable in the near future to try and mine the moon for such a material.

I flipped on the history channel the other night and.....

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