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

BigRedBigRed Posts: 716
in Precious Metals
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?

Comments

  • rgCoinGuyrgCoinGuy Posts: 7,478 ✭
    Have you priced moon dust lately? I would think in our lifetime, this will not affect rarity.
    imageQuid pro quo. Yes or no?
  • lathmachlathmach Posts: 4,720 ✭


    << <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
  • MoneyLAMoneyLA Posts: 1,825 ✭
    why not? can you buy a futures contract on the first delivery ??
    Cheers, Alan Mendelson
    www.AlanBestBuys.com
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  • BBQnBLUESBBQnBLUES Posts: 1,803 ✭
    Wasn't this the plot to a movie with Bruce Willis ?

    image
  • rgCoinGuyrgCoinGuy Posts: 7,478 ✭


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



    Better yet, can you short it? image
    imageQuid pro quo. Yes or no?
  • BigRedBigRed Posts: 716


    << <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.
  • LALASD4LALASD4 Posts: 3,602 ✭✭✭
    The cost of mining them would be too high. Or they could be radioactive. image
    Coin Collector, Chicken Owner, Licensed Tax Preparer & Insurance Broker/Agent.
    San Diego, CA


    image
  • WalmannWalmann Posts: 2,806 ✭
    The brings up the exciting possiblity of Comet Coinage made from...
    Would it be okay for these coins to be cleaned if using Comet?
    image
  • fishcookerfishcooker Posts: 3,446 ✭✭

    Heck, use re-entry to refine it and you may be on to something.
  • DoubleEagle59DoubleEagle59 Posts: 8,323 ✭✭✭✭✭
    if it ever does happen, it's a LONG time away.

    Not to worry about it.
  • fastrudyfastrudy Posts: 2,096 ✭
    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?
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  • fishcookerfishcooker Posts: 3,446 ✭✭
    We've drilled holes well beyond 30,000 ft.
  • fastrudyfastrudy Posts: 2,096 ✭
    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.
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  • fishcookerfishcooker Posts: 3,446 ✭✭
    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?
  • fastrudyfastrudy Posts: 2,096 ✭
    link
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  • COALPORTERCOALPORTER Posts: 2,900 ✭✭
    I suspect that is why they are studing Mars for signs of past life..possible oil?


  • fastrudyfastrudy Posts: 2,096 ✭
    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.
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  • BearBear Posts: 18,953 ✭✭✭
    I do not want to mess with

    anything that was able to

    kill the dinosaurs.image
    There once was a place called
    Camelotimage
  • joebb21joebb21 Posts: 4,746 ✭✭✭✭✭
    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
    may the fonz be with you...always...
  • GoldenEyeNumismaticsGoldenEyeNumismatics Posts: 13,187 ✭✭✭
    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.
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