Anyone got a spare Spaceship - 20 Trillion Dollar Asteroid on its way!

[TheBlueRaja]

A small snippet from an article over on CNN talking about the financil benefits of travelling into space revealed this little nugget.

Ever heard of 3554 Amun? It's a space rock about 2 kilometers in diameter that looks as if it might have fallen straight out of The Little Prince. There are three key things to know about 3554 Amun: First, its orbit crosses that of Earth; second, it's the smallest () M-class (metal-bearing) asteroid yet discovered; and finally, it contains (at today's prices) roughly $8 trillion worth of iron and nickel, $6 trillion of cobalt, and $6 trillion of platinumlike metals. In other words, whoever owns Amun could become 450 times as wealthy as Bill Gates. And if you time your journey right -- 2020 looks promising -- it's easier to reach than the Moon.

[danielf]

Sounds nice, but I don't think it would fit in my shed

Ah, asteroid mining ... that staple of many a sci-fantasy universe. Would you still be 450x richer than Bill Gate$ after deducting overheads from any revenue you make ouf of mining the asteriod, that's the real question ...

Originally Posted by Chris T

Ah, asteroid mining ... that staple of many a sci-fantasy universe. Would you still be 450x richer than Bill Gate$ after deducting overheads from any revenue you make ouf of mining the asteriod, that's the real question ...

And would the market prices hold up if you started bringing that much back?

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Ah, asteroid mining ... that staple of many a sci-fantasy universe. Would you still be 450x richer than Bill Gate$ after deducting overheads from any revenue you make ouf of mining the asteriod, that's the real question ...

Mmmm, easier to reach than the moon, asteroid mining, huge wealth beyond dreams, you think there might be a catch

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Ah, asteroid mining ... that staple of many a sci-fantasy universe. Would you still be 450x richer than Bill Gate$ after deducting overheads from any revenue you make ouf of mining the asteriod, that's the real question ...

Just drop it on Iraq

No need for the war - Oil and precious metals instead.

[Halcyon]

If I had the money, I'd definately buy one.
We are quickly running out of resources and I'd make milllions selling stuff back to earth.

[Minbu]

I'm surprised there isn't one for sale on E-Bay!

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by Minbu

I'm surprised there isn't one for sale on E-Bay!

Who says there isnt?

[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Ah, asteroid mining ... that staple of many a sci-fantasy universe. Would you still be 450x richer than Bill Gate$ after deducting overheads from any revenue you make ouf of mining the asteriod, that's the real question ...

Not for the first mission, no. It'd take several such missions to recover your costs, as with any investment project into which you're sinking sums of 10, 12 or possibly even 15 figures. But once you did recover your costs, if you had the patience to wait a decade or so, you would be richer than Bill. The overall cost would depend, more than anything else, on a) how close this asteroid's going to come to Earth, and b) how long it's going to be close. Until someone invents the science fact equivalent of an impulse drive, the biggest slice of any space mission budget will be eaten by the fuel costs.

The cheapest way to do it as far as I can see would be to: send several unmanned fuel tankers up to the International Space Station, creating a fuel dump; refit a number of Shuttles for mining and operations beyond Earth orbit (since the Shuttle isn't really designed for anything other than LEO - Low Earth Orbit - missions); fill said tankers with mined material as they're emptied; send the tankers back to Earth; remove the minerals and refill them with fuel; and so on until the asteroid's gutted. Then just sit back and use a computer to count the money, because there sure as hell wouldn't be any other way to count it. It would cost nothing to send the tankers back, except the tiny amounts of fuel for steering thrusters to set them on course for re-entry and splashdown in, preferably, a shallow ocean/lake/whatever. That's because the Earth's gravity will do all the work; effectively, the tankers just fall down the planet's gravity well, for free.

The question is: is any investor or government going to have the cojones to do it? I hope so. Perhaps a small-scale mission, maybe even using an unmanned probe, could be launched as a feasibility study. But the mathematics were worked out years ago, when it was first discovered that asteroids are often rich in minerals; it can be done. There's nothing in the laws of physics - or even economics - that says it can't. It's more a matter of engineering than anything else. As with many possibilities, it's only a fantasy until someone does it. The idea that virtually anyone in the world could communicate in real time with anyone else in the world, even in opposite hemispheres, was once a fantasy...but now we take it for granted. One day, the same will be true of asteroid mining.

[Chris W]

I can just imagine phoning HMRC and asking if i'd have to pay duty to import the stuff...

[AndrewJ]

But can you get a kebab while there...if not ain't worth it to me.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

<snip>

It's all fine sending tankers back and forth, but how long do you think this asteroid will be close enough to earth to do any mining?

[bopdude]

Couldn't we lasso it from a passing space station

[Paddy1]

Originally Posted by bopdude

Couldn't we lasso it from a passing space station

"We're gonna need a bigger space station!"