/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11506253
Woah, that's around 75€
A literal nothing burger

In the end you'll be sitting on a really big pile of metals no one needs.

>>11506333
I'm sure there are many uses for gold and platinum that cannot be currently explored because it would be prohibitively expensive. Both of them have many qualities that make them important for industrial and mechanical purposes.

Let's just, for a second say that they mine it.
All of a sudden now that it's so abundant, the price drops and it's net worth is now 5 cents.

>>11506342
let's just, for a second, say they take this into account and don't bring it all back to Earth at the same time because that would be impossible anyway. The plan is this: crash the market for several years until all traditional mining efforts are completely put out of business and then crank the price up when you're the only supplier. This is a well understood business plan.

>>11506337
>>11506333 is still right tho. wtf is anyone going to do with trillions of tons of gold?

>>11506349
Gold is used in electronic devices.
there's about 200,000 tonnes of gold in the world
If we had trillions of tonnes, we could turn your house into a super computer by making bricks contain electric circuits with gold in it.
You could use this to perhaps cloud compute for your robotic servants

>>11506342
That's what happened to the Spanish during the Age of Discovery.
They extracted so many resources from the New World that they devalued their own economy and caused severe inflation.

But I do not believe that this is problem here. Because the technology doesn't exist for us to extract enough to cause run away inflation. There is a bottleneck.
By the time we can actually extract all resources from planetoids, Humans will be on other celestial bodies. The economy will grow naturally.

>>11506253
We already have a thread for this: >>11502639

>>11506342
>the price drops and it's net worth is now 5 cents.
That is the point. Damaging the Chinese economy is just a bonus.

>>11506349
Some arab is gonna build a skyscraper out of it

>>11506253
Lol no we don't have the technology. And when we do it will cost billions or trillions to mine it

>>11506333

couldn't you make extremely cheap emissions filtering devices with all that platinum and just put them on everything.

>>11506429
they wouldn't be so gauche, because gold would be cheap. They'd move on to something rarer, like live slaves

>>11506253
16 psyche huh? So it’s pretty certain at this point that 2-6 objects formed in the space between Jupiter and Mars which later collided. 16 Psyche would be the core of one such object. It would be a bit sad to mine it without first studying it to learn the origins of the asteroid belt.

There are competing theories about the origin of the asteroid belt but they would need to explain the abundance of silicates and the rarity of metals with some, like 16 Psyche being almost completely metals especially rare earths. This should make most sense if it were 2-4 objects that formed into planetary bodies before colliding as a sufficiently large body undergoes a process called ‘Differentiation’ where as a body is cooling from a liquid state the metals fall to the center. This is why rare earths are rare. Only a collision theory explains the existence of bodies like 16 Psyche which is why we need to go there.

So on one hand we need to study the hell out of it and on the other it has metals in it not found in Earth’s crust in much abundance because all those heavy metals fell to the core. There are endless opportunities for those rare earths to be useful in science.

>>11506253
The advantage of these resources isn't to bring them back to Earth and theoretically make money, as that would devalue them. It's for when you're using massive amounts of resources to colonize the solar system, you funnel these asteroids directly into that industry to keep costs down and prevent depletion of Earthside resources.

>>11506349
If gold was common enough, it would basically replace lead as the bullet material of choice. Gold is more dense than lead, soft so you don't have to worry barrel damage, and the bullets will expand nicely when they hit, non-corrosive, and non-toxic - that last part would be welcomed by ranges, who currently have to spend a fair bit on lead disposal and such.

>>11506333
>>11506342
>>11506528
>having more materials to make things is bad

>>11506566
Having too much of a material is bad if you want to sell it. There's a reason why the diamond market goes through great lengths to restrict the amount of diamonds available.

>>11506253
Use the materials on the asteroid to make a railgun that can shoot chunks back to earth.

>>11506333
Except for those that can build in space.

People forget that we could stop mining on earth as soon as we can harvest these fuckers. Finally enough for a star fleet.
Let's do this!

>>11506333
Aren't those metals used in manufacturing?

>>11506349
Laugh at the goldbugs sleeping in cardboard boxes in an alley behind the dialysis clinic.

>>11506573
>Having too much of a material is bad if you want to sell it
This is not true. If you have a bigger stockpile of any material than anyone else you effectively become a monopoly and can control the market at will. If randomly gold started falling from the sky and everyone had access, sure, but there's going to be 2 major asteroid mining operations at most and more likely only 1 since the cost of entry is so high.
DeBeers couldn't manipulate the market by restricting the flow of diamonds if they weren't the biggest major supplier and their business model is obviously incredibly successful.

>>11506557
How well would they work for their primary purpose of incapacitating a living target?

>>11506349
see
>>11506337

>>11506253
That would crash market prices, so the answer is no.

>>11506333
But what if some faggot takes all this stuff to himself?

>>11506253
It will be mined when it becomes cheaper than mining those same materials on Earth.

i.e. after we're dead.

>>11506353
the cost of gold is a fraction of the cost of electronics, retard.

>>11506636
>crash the market
>drive all your competitors out of business
>become a monopoly
>raise the price back up
this is literally how most companies operate these days. If they can't buy out their competition, they just operate at a loss until their competition goes under and they buy them up in liquidation.

>>11506349
dab on golden standard fags

>>11506629
Better than lead - gold is about 50% more dense than lead, so gold bullets would carry more kinetic energy at the same velocity; heavier bullets are also less effected by things like cross-wind. Gold is also soft & would expand to make a bigger hole in the target. Other very dense metals like tungsten are also very hard, and thus tend to go right through soft targets without deforming. Tungsten bullets also can run afoul of rules regarding armor-piercing bullets, and tungsten is a much more difficult material to work with than gold.

>>11506670
Isn't that illegal in most developed countries?

>>11506743
being a monopoly is, but crashing the market with surplus first isn't and all it takes is one other competitor to satisfy anti-trust laws and that's just an oligopoly instead of a monopoly.

>>11506353
We're talking about TRILLIONs of tons of gold. There's no need for that, unless we have 100 billion + people.

>>11506774
>There's no need for that
how do you know? The current demand for gold is built around the supply. You're talking like someone in the early 20th century saying being able to produce more aluminum is a waste of time because the demand for it isn't there.

>>11506743
It's pretty much Wal-Mart's business model with the added bonus of often building just outside the city limits so they don't pay local taxes to the city their customers live in. Obviously doesn't work in large cities which is why Wal-Mart focused on rural areas and suburban sprawl for so long.

all the morons in this thread pretending GOLD is fucking fiat and having more will make everyone poor

seeth fucking harder

>>11506781
There's no need for that =! There will not be any need for that.

For the current situation, our planet doesn't need trillions of tons of gold. Maybe in the future though.

Sorry for my English.

>>11506781
640k should be enough for anyone.

>>11506787
Nah, it's not a currency issue, at least not for most. It's about the intrinsic value of gold. But as some have pointed out, there might be other widespread uses for gold if it were in greater supply. No matter what, its value would radically change if we had access to more of it.

>>11506797
it's true valueTM is intrinsic in it's usefulness and can never be altered unless it's made obsolete by newer technology

It's current value is overinflated due to being a currency

>>11506743
Yes but the lines between healthy and legal price competition and standard oil esq predaotry pricing racket are pretty fuzzy.
Also it just so happens that people who are big enough to run these kind of schemes tend to have lot of money which in turn means they are functionally outside of law.

>>11506456
Or you could use the pt to make affordable fuel cells for clean energy

>>11506253
There is literally nothing an asteroid could be made of that will exceed the cost of intercepting it, mining, and transporting back to earth.
Not gold, not platinum, not solid diamond.
But that's irrelevant because it's not remotely feasible and exists only in sci-fi fantasies.

>>11506253

Unfortunately all the wealth would go to the 1% of the 1% and nothing would change for the rest. If anything, there would be more disparity and income inequality.

This whole fucking system needs to go.

>>11506774
There are many practical industrial uses for a corrosion free metal.

>>11506333
wasted trips. Besides looking good, gold is probably the most useful element. It would be everywhere if it wasn't so rare and expensive. Copper would go fuck itself trying to compete. If only there were a way to get more...

It takes 699.99 quintillion to mine it, so never.

>>11507044
You can take a loan out right now and change your future

>>11506979
I'm super glad all the great inventers throughout history had this much practicality

>>11506774
What, you thought we'd hire planet express to throw a lasso around it, tow it back and park it a few miles off New York harbor? You're not picturing little ore collector bots making relay runs between the earth and the comet? Tiny shipments amounting to a few tons per year, purposefully limiting the supply so it stays expensive so you can continue to fund the operation?

I'll tell you the same thing I told a promising young mayoral candidate deciding between the $30 6" dildo and the $50 9" dildo- "you don't gotta take the whole thing at once, but it's there if you need it"

>>11507076
Not an argument.

>>11506253
Once a business-oriented astrologist gets elected president

>>11507118
Astronomer*
Etymologically, it should be the other way around though. "Astronomy" means "Naming stars", "Astrology" means "Studying stars"

>>11507118
NASA has been ineffectual for decades—private space is the future and is actively making large leaps.

>>11506253
only the platinum is really valuable, gold maybe.

the first few people who do it would be isnanely rich but after that it will become a niche thing.

The platinum could be interesting, there are some really advanced shit that can be done with platinum but it doesnt get done because its so scarce, with a steady supply of it we could for example put a catalytic convertor on every single car and factory on earth, literally making the whole earth free of smog

>>11507103
>What, you thought we'd hire planet express to throw a lasso around it, tow it back and park it a few miles off New York harbor? Y
literally yes, cut it into big chunks and crash it into big shallow uninhabited lakes or deserts.

Ask any miner if it would not be profitable to have a big pile of above ground gold and platinum compared to going underground

>>11507103
kek

>>11506616
You're ignoring demand.

>>11506659
what the fuck? gold prices are skyrocketing and its selling out everywhere. you know what, go try to buy an ounce of gold right now, let me know how it works out.

16 Psyche is bigger than the dinosaur killer, maybe trying to move it closer to our planet might not be such a great idea. Don't forget your kerbal training, it will take more energy to stop it than it did to get it moving because the destination is deeper in the gravity well.

That said, where would you want to put it? I'd say in orbit around the moon if it were possible, seems like a safer target if something went wrong.

>>11507283
Drop it on the moon, far side.

>>11507283
With the right equations and some well placed explosions, we could probably catapult it into earth's orbit and slow it down before it escapes.

>>11506333
We’ll never build a space fleet with that attitude

>>11506337
>I'm sure there are many uses for gold and platinum that cannot be currently explored because it would be prohibitively expensive
name three.

>>11506253
Perhaps? If you look at this in an avtually intleligent way, unlike 90% of this board, its obvious. If the price of mining it is sufficiently low enough, someone will do it. There is NO intelligent situation where someone mines this and somehow is affected negatively by ruining the market or something. There are three worlds that come from mining this asteroid. A.) It was so expensive as to force them to sell the Gold at a loss. B.) It ended up costing about the same as gold on earth, they have a normal competition. C.) It is a far cheaper process, they sell gold for way less than their competitors, radically changing the market in their favor.
It does NOT matter if they gain a LITERALLY infinite source of gold doing this by the way. The sheer volume of goods doesnt "win" a market in any way. The only thing that really matters in a market is how much you spend to get a good in a state to be bought, and how much yiur competitors spent to do the same. If your competitors equivalent process is more, you win, otherwise you lose.

>>11507593
not him, but what about using gold for all wiring instead of copper? same conductivity but less resistance right? Only reason we don't is because it would be retard tier expensive

>>11506253
Why is the actual value of this asteroid when incorporating the eventual decrease in price due to resource inflation caused by mining it?

>>11507593
As someone mentioned above, gold would make an ideal bullet material if it weren't so expensive. Gold could also replace lead in stuff like x-ray shielding. It would also make a great replacement for copper in any situation where you want corrosion resistance. Cheaper platinum would more effective catalytic converters cheaper; it would also drop the price of fuel cells making them more viable for various uses.

>>11506783
>so they don't pay local taxes to the city their customers live in
What? then they would have to pay a different city, do they have a better tax rate there?

>>11507696
That would be impossible to answer; prices would certainly drop for many of those elements, but that would stimulate new uses for those materials so no one could tell exactly where they would fall on the supply demand curve.

>>11507828
In these rural area, outside of city limits = unincorporated land that is not part of any city. There would still be county taxes, but those are almost always lower. In more suburban areas, Walmart (or pretty much any business) looking at opening a store near the border of two jurisdictions will usually pick the lower tax one, all else being equal.

>>11506342
>Let's just, for a second say that they mine it.
>All of a sudden now that it's so abundant, the price drops and it's net worth is now 5 cents.

That's the point. If goods and services are cheaper because the supply is higher you can have more goods and services.

>>11506355
How does that story even work

Inflation is the expansion of the money supply. So for example if they were using gold as currency then suddenly got a bunch of gold, that would be a problem because now everyone's gold is worth less, on top of that gold wasn't actually useful for anything but jewelry in the old world. But the upside is they could trade the gold for things to other nations.

Actually I think I see the what you're talking about. They traded things for gold, and that's what fucked them.

Mining an asteroid has nothing to do with that.

>>11507280
That's because of the current economic crisis and gold as a hedge against inflation. When it inevitably goes away the anon you're responding to will be correct.

>>11507886
Normal people who wren't getting the supply of gold from the new world and people who were saving money in gold got completely fucked over.
Same with today's central bank fiasco.
Savers get absolutely assfucked because the number in their bank account stays the same but the buying power of each dollar drops drastically so they basically lose money by saving.

>>11506467
>they wouldn't be so gauche

>>11506333
The value of a rock obviously can't exceed GDP if you were to try to sell it. Once demand is met, prices will have to drop if they want to move more supply.

However, a fuckton of platinum group metals would completely change the cost evaluation of using rare earth in catalysts/alloys/etc which would be an absolute boon to Chemistry and Materials industries.

The real value of this rock lies in that it's a rock IN SPACE.
If we can lock this rock in our orbit then we could make a space station on/in the rock.
Then instead of sending the materials down to earth we could send it to the moon for manufacture and make ships there.

>>11506253
Yes, its time to penetrate the ovaries of the Universe;

VVVVVRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

>>11507110
wtvr nigga, your "argument" has like zero numbers to back it up and furthermore it's like you assumed we are already at the apex of space and transportation technology.

Not like it matters. I'm sure the first caveman to build a house was met with critics and nay sayers too. I don't think you give enough credit to the human spirit of "fuck you I'll do what I want", even to physics herself

>>11506253
Anybody who thinks that rock is worth $700 quintillion is too stupid to live, no matter how much gold and platinum it has in it. That much metal would crater the market price for those metals.

>>11507278
gold doesn't react with oxygen, we'd make literally everything out of it if we could.

>>11506355
Why did he murder that tiger?

>>11506253
who's going to pay for it you moron?

>>11506253
Iron costs so little that transport costs are an important consideration. This wouldn't make sense at all.

>>11509250
It was gonna attack him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn1OMBK0Xfo

>>11509249
>literally everything
2soft4construction. But it does have a huge range of applications.

>>11506253
Nigga if you just own all of that asteroid you can choose at what rate you let it enter the market so that it doesn't crash the price.

>>11509178
that's because he's a low effort troll
screeching NEVER EVER NEVER EVER seems to be the reason for his continued contamination of the earth

>>11506333

Aluminum was once more expensive than gold, and used for almost nothing but fancy silverware. When the price dropped, it's uses exploded. The airplane became possible due to cheap aluminum.

If the price of gold were to drop in this way, all sorts of good things could happen. Maybe you can make car batteries or super motors out of gold? Gold plated prothstetics? Electronics have been mentioned. People aren't looking too hard for ways to consume gold today because it is too expensive.

>>11506979
>>11509178

Unfortunately, this is true for the foreseeable future. It is just a matter of looking at how much energy is involved in moving that thing around and slowing it down to Earth speeds.

Now building structures that stay in space might be reasonable someday.

>>11509250
Leslie Nielsen was allergic to cat fur.

>>11506333
That gold would be extremely useful for construction in space. Solar reflectors, photovoltaic panels, radiation shielding, electronics. If you're going to park something in orbit with people on board, you might as well literally gold plate it for moderate cosmic ray protection. If the plating is continuous then it could also be engineered into the thermal design of the craft, as gold is an excellent conductor of heat. It's malleable, ductile, easy to machine, and has a wide range of uses. Orbital spacecraft construction would greatly benefit from a large amount of gold on hand.

>>11509250

U S A
S
A

>>11506253
As soon as all that gold enters the market, its value will plunge, and the asteroid will worth a couple trillions; unless some gov/company monopolizes it like one company used to have the diamond monopoly

>>11506253
This would destroy the world economy harder than it actually smacking into our planet. I'm excited.

>>11510282
>This would destroy the world economy harder than it actually smacking into our planet. I'm excited.

Gold is just another fiat currency. A real economy is about producing useful stuff. A few billionaires would lose their shirts over that, but most people will be better off with a new material to do useful things with.

>>11509905
Anything seems possible when you're a low-IQ retard with no idea of the energy requirements to reach an extraterrestrial object and transport ore from it back to earth.
Add to that the asteroid is likely moving VERY fast relative to earth, so delta-v requirements would be prohibitive.
And even if you ignore that and assume it can be intercepted, how quickly can you mine before it travels too far away to make the return journey?
Honestly, these space mining ideas are only put forth by pop-sci retards.
Until you can come up with a real way to deal with the problems listed above, stick to sci-fi, brainlets.

>>11506253
We're never getting anywhere near it. Ever.

No because it's out in the asteroid belt and we lack the technology for it. Even with the technology, you're risking tens of millions on pulling off an asteroid landing and even if it all goes well the international community will fuck you while also demanding free gibs.

4660 Nereus would be better test-bed but it's earmarked for construction material in Near-Earth orbit.

>>11506342
>Fund the whole operation on futures
>Bring it to high-Earth orbit and chill

It's pretty easy to spread the risk on this. You can probably attract investors just on the sheer novelty value.

>>11510628
>being so low iq that you think he meant for it to be the FIRST asteroid mined
also
technology doesn't work like it does in video games, there aren't magic research points that transform into the equipment we need
development comes from demand, without a demand for this technology, it would never be made

>>11510334
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution

>>11510638
He literally said mined *soon*. kys.

>>11510649
soon does not equal first, smooth brain

Rare earth metals are important for the electrification such as batteries, motors and generators. People plan to fill the Indian ocean and the North Sea with wind turbines which will require a lot of all sorts of metals, including "boring" stuff such as copper.

With upgraded national electrical backbone superconducting cabling will be cost effective, especially if you get vast quantities of cheap lead and niobium.

>>11510334

>he thinks gold and platinum aren't industrially useful

>>11510655

>People plan to fill the Indian ocean and the North Sea with wind turbines which will require a lot of all sorts of metals, including "boring" stuff such as copper.

The fact that people think this is economically and environmentally superior to Gen IV fission reactors is ridiculous

>>11511878
they don't because propaganda told them green rock bad
They aren't sapient like humans are, they have to be told what their opinions are

>estimating value in obsolete jew federal reserve notes

>>11511878
>Gen IV fission reactors
Wake me up when they are here and work. Science ficgtion does not count.

>>11507826
Why is gold better for bullets? Wouldn't be a problem that it's really soft?

>>11509578
obviously not buildings, but door knobs and plates and furniture and utensils and literally anything currently make out of aluminum or copper

>>11510408
>why yes, doing anything unusual is impossible
>why no, I'm not interested in thinking from there to ways to make things possible

What about a muti billionaire in the 2030s crashing the price of gold, platinum group metals, etc for the lolz? Imagine the reaction from the libertarians who stack gold and silver to prepare for a hyper inflation event.

>>11513722
loooooooooool
Do it based billionaire

Not in our lifetimes.

>>11506253
Gold itself is almost worthless besides the few scientific applications and status symbol. Increasing the gold supply only inflates the gold economy, and makes the overall value decrease. That asteroid is not worth quintillions, nothing is because we don't have that much money in our global economy today.

>>11513716
>no arguments
Stick to sci-fi, retard.

>>11506333
This. You'd need to trickle it into the economy or it'd wreck it and be worth nothing but grief.

>>11506349
We would stop using copper in all the electronics and replace it with gold.

>>11513910
Only if the gold supply vastly outnumbered the copper supply, which is unlikely because we have massive amounts of copper.

>>11506253
Hands off my fucking asteroid, I saw it first.

>>11513609
Lead is even softer than gold, and obviously works just fine in bullets. Generally when you design a bullet for use against soft targets (ie hunting or self defense) you want a softer material that will expand when it hits, to make a bigger hole in the target.
>>11506737
>>11506557
explains other reasons gold would make an ideal bullet material.

>>11514133
They stopped using lead in bullets due to its tendency to explode out of the barrel of the gun like sticky putty.

>>11514158
Where the hell did you get that idea?
The vast majority of bullets produced today are made of lead with a copper jacket.

>>11514209
Just snozzling your nozzle mate.

>>11513298

>science fiction

It's not cold fusion, brainlet, they're around the fucking corner.

Or maybe I'll just change my original post to say 'Gen III+ fission reactors' and be equally valid - whilst also appealing to lower common denominators such as yourself.

>>11506333
Mine it secretly and release only small amounts so you don't crash the market

>>11506349

>>11514949
>It's not cold fusion,
Amusingly, I never claimed that either.
>brainlet, they're around the fucking corner.
Rrrright.

>>11506333
>14 replies
Ok I gotta get in on this one.
Did you even fucking look at the picture? The iron portion of that could halt harmful iron mining here on Earth for millennia. We would literally never have to mine iron again. The infrastructure of mining gold and iron would disappear completely and uneducated, fat miners would be forced to enter competitive job spaces. The ex-fat miners could propel us into a neo Renaissance era and literally come up with the ideas necessary to complete the type one civilaztion criterion.

>>11506333
>>11506342
>>11506349
Space colonies will need them. If bezos gets his way, and we start building rotating space habitats, those massive magnets that'll be powering the whole thing will need to come from somewhere.

>>11506349
Build the Imperial Palace obviously.

>>11514949
>giving it a (You)
dumb newfag

>>11509964
>energy is involved in moving that thing around and slowing it down to Earth speeds.
That is probably the main issue, especially as Psyche is mainly metals, most likely heavy metals such as gold.
Then again one could make gigantic solar sail foils to get the payload inwards, mining and refining in place.

>>11514158
cool story no guns