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From: BradGuth <bradguth@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: fj.kanji,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Which asteroids in our solar system would you use for mining???
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 18:58:11 -0700 (PDT)
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On Apr 1, 12:08=A0am, "Mike Dworetsky"
<platinum...@pants.btinternet.com> wrote:
> "Sam Minewire" <ingest_p...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:b67b43ea-d0b6-4173-b0a0-2126d3d4afb0@v38g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
>
> >I wonder if there are asteroids with Gold, Silver or
> > Platinum in our solar system.
>
> > Which asteroids would you use for mining???
>
> It remains far cheaper to mine for these elements on Earth, and this will=
 be
> the case for some time to come. =A0Silver is not a particularly valuable
> metal, by the way, as its price is around 2% that of gold.
>
> The main reason to consider mining asteroids is that some of them contain
> high amounts of easily extracted iron and nickel in pure form, without th=
e
> need for polluting refinement from ore. =A0Even then, it will be a long t=
ime
> before it is economic to do this.
>
> Current cost of launch to geosynchronous orbit is around $10,000/pound (4=
54
> gm). =A0Cost to asteroid belt would be (a guess) about double that (more =
fuel,
> more booster stages). =A0That doesn't take into account the cost of a
> specialised spacecraft.
>
> The current price of gold is $925/troy ounce (31 gm). =A0So unless the pr=
ice
> of gold soars to $2000-3000 per ounce it isn't even worth thinking about.
> And gold prices tend to rise in times of economic crisis, when the
> political/financial ability to mount big space missions is less.
>
> The other problem is, suppose you mount a big mining operation and return=
 to
> Earth with tonnes and tonnes of these metals. =A0You attempt to sell them=
 on
> the open market. =A0The supply goes up--the price comes down, fast.
>
> --
> Mike Dworetsky

He3 will soon enough become worth $10B/tonne ($10,000/gram)

Radium is already damn spendy, and our Selene/moon has lots of that
too,

 ~ BG