Doug, List,
I'll refer you to the book, "Mining The Sky," by
John S. Lewis, which makes a nice solid 260-page
case for the economic value of the asteroids. Or
to Harrison Schmidt's economic analysis of the
value of mining the lunar surface for REE's
(Rare Earth Elements).
Iron is worth about $0.25 per kilo, but nickel is
now over $12 per kilo, Lanthanum oxide $134 per
kilo, Neodymium $260 per kilo, and so forth.
Or maybe, just check this source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
"At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic
asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (1 mile)
contains more than 20 trillion US dollars worth
of industrial and precious metals." At today's
prices? A lot more.
The "not an iron" comment was in relation to
safety only. A 10-20-meter rock is safe to drop;
an iron that size is not. Personally, I think the
worry about accuracy of orbital maneuvers is
silly and mis-placed. Few human operations are
are so precise. Think about matchng up with
Vesta from hundreds of millions of km away!
The usual standard of accuracy is roughly akin
to shooting the eye out of a one-eyed Jack at
100 miles away. Routine.
Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "MexicoDoug" <mexicod...@aim.com>
To: <Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit
Hello Sterling,
Well, since the purpose of this is to mine an asteroid, it seems
pretty foolish to waste all that effort on a 10 meter rock which you
won't allow to be an iron.
IT HAS TO BE AN IRON unless you want to waste money. Or do you want
to mine antimony (element = Sb). That would be very successfully at
mining Antimoney (element = $$$ouch$$$) !!!
The problem is that most of the trace elements worth mining are
siderophiles. So if you are going to mine silaceous, or most stony
meteorites, I'd suggest going to a beach on earth (with a K-T
outcropping if you insist ;-) with a tonka dump truck as the initial
probe...
Even at the 1 ppm level (a gross exaggeration for a stony meteorite),
there is 1,200 grams of gold in your 1,200 ton 10 meter diameter
"spherical" asteroid. Now I know gold is getting expensive, but let's
keep our feet on terra firma. If you are going to mine anything, it
needs to be worth it. Considering that "mining" such a small body is
an expensive proposition (how do you think it would be smelted in
orbit), they'd be better off just bringing back the 1,200 grams of raw
asteroid and selling it to scientists and collectors. So, no matter
how you cut up this "pie in the sky" in a spreadsheet, it ain't
workin'
Kindest wishes
Doug
-----Original Message-----
From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_w...@sbcglobal.net>
To: Bernd V. Pauli <bernd.pa...@paulinet.de>;
meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 7:01 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth
Orbit
Hi, Bernd, List,
A mere 10-meter spherical asteroid? (To a physicist, everything is
spherical at the first approximation...) That's 523.6 cu. meters. At a
rock density of 2 to 3 metric tons per cu. meter, that's somewhere
between 1047.2 and 1570.8 metric tons.
As a disaster, it's on a par with dropping a grand piano on a cartoon
coyote. It would be a slow approach and MIGHT drop 10 kilos of
meteorites, but probably not unless it grazed the atmosphere at the
correct angle. However, a 10-meter asteroid is a tiny playground.
What if it were a 100-meter asteroid, ten times bigger, and lots of
surface (and about 1,000,000 tons). If you accidentally dropped that
object on the Earth, you'd have a 250-meter crater and 0.2 MegaTon
blast.
Too big to play with.
A 33-meter asteroid? Airbursts at 14 kilometers and splatters a lot of
fast fragments, but no craters. From this I conclude that the 10-meter
asteroid grab is a Modest Proposal.
Unless, of course, it's an iron...
Sterling K.
Webb -------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bernd V. Pauli"
<bernd.pa...@paulinet.de> To: <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 4:51 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] A Plan
To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit
"Interesting idea. What could possibly go wrong?" What if the nudge
is a little bit too strong? What if the Moon interferes? What if this
NEO is thus sent hurtling toward planet Earth? - utter devestation -
millions of people killed - wildfires - tsunamis - earthquakes - tons
and tons of material ejected into the atmosphere - etc., etc. Bernd
______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at
>
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
______________________________________________
Visit the Archives at
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
______________________________________________
Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
Meteorite-list mailing list
Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
