NASA Plans To Explore A 10 Quintillion Dollar Asteroid That Could Cause The World's Economy To Collapse

[Dionyz]

This is so clickbait. People don't understand how much it would cost to harvest asteroids.

[AresKrieger]

The title of this thread is complete BS, it's not like mining the asteroid would be free, it isn't even feasible right now thus this doomsday talk is complete nonsense

[straight_stewie]

6 hours ago, FirstArmada said:

NASA Plans To Explore A 10 Quintillion Dollar Asteroid That Could Cause The World's Economy To Collapse

16 Psyche is a huge chunk of metal, made up of iron, nickel and precious metals

On Earth, the iron would be worth £8,072 quadrillion ($10,000 quadrillion)

Nasa plans to visit the asteroid in 2023 but does not plan to bring it back to Earth

If it did, its value would play havoc with commodity prices and destroy the world's economy

I have to disagree with the conclusion that NASA isn't bringing it back because "It's value is too large". Firstly, it can represent all the value it wants, it only matters if we can actually get to the ore, and then get the ore back to Earth, regularly and reliably, which we can't. I think that we have to remember these conclusions were drawn in a cbs article.

The real reason that NASA isn't catching it is because, well, we don't really know if we can reposition large planetary or sub planetary bodies yet. 

[ARikozuM]

How many years do we have until Mass Effect becomes a thing?

 

2552, right?

[ATFink]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Did you calculate that with the assumption of a zero starting velocity, or did you account for the velocity that the asteroid orbit already has?

 

Depending on the orbit, all you have to do is give it some nudges now and then. You're not accelerating the asteroid from zero velocity.

Also, as the asteroid gets closer to Earth some of the Energy from Earth's orbit would be transferred over to the asteroid through gravitational forces (Earth slows down and accelerates the asteroid through gravity... assuming Earth has a faster orbital velocity). Basically a closer proximity to Earth would help with reeling the asteroid in.

 

That, and slowing the asteroid down a bit could force the sun to do all the work dragging the asteroid's orbit closer to Earth's.

 

That being said, the asteroid could do massive damage to Earth through tides (don't know the size of the asteroid, but it would have to orbit very far away from Earth... probably a lot further away from Earth than just geosynchronous orbit). Honestly several different orbits should be considered. Orbiting Earth alone would probably screw up the moon's orbit around Earth if it's too big. It would probably have to sit in a Lagrange point with regards to either the Earth and the moon, or the Earth and the sun. I haven't actually done any math because I don't know the mass of the asteroid or its current orbital velocity and radius, and I don't care to look it up.

 

Interesting concept to think of... taking a course in orbital mechanics seems like it would be beneficial to this conversation.

[Mooshi]

Maybe we mine a little bit to actually pay our crippling national debt? 

 

[That Norwegian Guy]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Oh shit someone call Bruce Willis

Forget Bruce Willis, we need commander Boston Low.

[FloRolf]

7 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

They should keep it for themselves and use it to build spacecraft in space, rather than launching them. Doesn't matter how heavy it is if it's built in space

Good luck making steel from Iron in space. 

[ATFink]

13 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Maybe we mine a little bit to actually pay our crippling national debt? 

 

I think what the OP is saying is that alleviating modern resources stresses through mining the asteroid will cripple many markets related to mining raw goods, therefore paying off our debts with this would actually prove a net loss (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this OP). I disagree with that statement, but I think that's what FirstArmada meant.

[MoonSpot]

3 hours ago, Sephiroth said:

I mean, when your other options are 1) Leave it be, or 2) slam it into the earth all at once, slowly mining it is likely the way they'd have to go about it, if you really wanted to obtain the resources on that asteroid.

Well.. if we could bring it here as a new satellite, and we if we could jump back and forth freely from earths surface to orbit in order to mine and transport raw materials.  It might not be all that time consuming to mine.  Remember that the material of interest hasn't really been differentiated by the gravity of the asteroid.  The term mining is probably painting the wrong image, could be more like shoveling or chipping.

2 hours ago, suits said:

Oh more people trying to cause panic. If there was a viable way to bring it back it would probably help the economy. When gas prices go down more people travel, people buy more things, the economy goes up. When gas prices skyrocket everyone stays home and we wonder why the economy sucks. Bring this thing home and we can see prices go down, products become cheaper, people buy a lot more. The economy wins. 

Hey if we slam the asteroid into the earth surface, it could very well destroy the economy.  I don't think beetles and micro organisms subscribe to either Keynesian or Austrian economics theorem.  Could very well be the end of all cronyism as we know it.

But yea, it's just a bunch of BS they want to make noise about to shake up crap.  For crying out loud the #$%ing thing is in the asteroid belt.  Not some deposit in a 3rd world country.  Hell, we probably couldn't effectively mine Antarctica, nevermind space. 

2 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

How many years do we have until Mass Effect becomes a thing?

 

2552, right?

After Terminators judgement day failed to happen, I've lost all faith in hollywood/Game dev fortune telling.

[2FA]

And to mine it...

[2FA]

20 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Good luck making steel from Iron in space. 

That and steel really isn't used heavily in spacecraft and aircraft. An asteroid of this size would be wasted on some outerspace shipyard instead of transporting the metal down to Earth where it can be used most heavily.

[ATFink]

4 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Yeah the asteriod has that much worth of iron. Except if we mamaged to get it, iron would then become worthless because of overabundance. Can't even hide it to keep the price up cuz its a frickin asteroid. And then you would have to spend an equally astronomical sum for the mode of transport and fuel in order to haul that much metal anyway. 

 

Sustenance is much more important than building materials by the way. 

Iron is already basically worthless in and of itself. The only thing that would be affected in steel prices would be the cut of cost to mine the iron ore itself. The price built into steel is of course the cost of iron, but also labor, transportation, refining it, doping it with other materials, processing it, scale of external demand... etc. 

 

The price per lb of iron ore is 2.65 US cents (not dollars) per pound (refernce: http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/ <--$53.07 per ton / 2000 pounds per ton... don't know which type of ton they are using whether it be 2000 lb or 1000 kg... there is a difference. The American in me went with the 2000 pounds per ton version).

 

My point is that I doubt the influx of iron would cause serious damage to the steel market which has to be the biggest buyer in the iron market. Therefore not much would change outside mining operations.

 

I recognize that there is probably a host of rare Earth metals in the asteroid, but the article doesn't highlight it and I'm too lazy to look up the makeup of the asteroid they are referencing.

[ATFink]

11 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

That and steel really isn't used heavily in spacecraft and aircraft. An asteroid of this size would be wasted on some outerspace shipyard instead of transporting the metal down to Earth where it can be used most heavily.

If bringing the asteroid over here is too much work then maybe leaving it where it is as a production hub for interplanetary use won't be a waste. With a correctly designed vessel it might not require that much energy to crash large chunks of iron into the ocean and pick it up with an ocean liner. It wouldn't require fuel unless you were trying to slow it down so as not to burn it up in the atmosphere.

[2FA]

7 minutes ago, ATFink said:

If bringing the asteroid over here is too much work then maybe leaving it where it is as a production hub for interplanetary use won't be a waste. With a correctly designed vessel it might not require that much energy to crash large chunks of iron into the ocean and pick it up with an ocean liner. It wouldn't require fuel unless you were trying to so it down so as not to burn up in the atmosphere.

Ummm, that would be incredibly inefficient as well. You would have to have chunks large enough to not have the majority burn up in entry let alone after impact which would likely break it up into many smaller pieces. However large chunks of an asteroid crashing into the ocean would likely cause tsunamis which limits the potential drop positions. You also have to worry about the potential of the chunk exploding in the atmosphere.

 

Mining asteroids isn't feasible until we are capable of spacecraft that can re-enter the atmosphere but have freighter capabilities and not something simply like the Shuttles.

[Thony]

How does that effect ecomy ? All money in the world dont make quadrillion let alone quintillion...

So only tiny pieces could be sold and priced well over diamonds and whatever comes above diamond value. 

 

Someone please explain, I want to know.

[JAKEBAB]

9 hours ago, TheRandomness said:

I mean they could just pull it into orbit and slowly mine it out, giving more metals and such over a much longer period of time whilst keeping it secret, therefore the economy wouldn't die. But hey, what do I know as a 16 yr old?

So like diamonds? lol

[Serin]

Takes protectionism to a new level... 

[FloRolf]

2 hours ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

Ummm, that would be incredibly inefficient as well. You would have to have chunks large enough to not have the majority burn up in entry let alone after impact which would likely break it up into many smaller pieces. However large chunks of an asteroid crashing into the ocean would likely cause tsunamis which limits the potential drop positions. You also have to worry about the potential of the chunk exploding in the atmosphere.

 

Mining asteroids isn't feasible until we are capable of spacecraft that can re-enter the atmosphere but have freighter capabilities and not something simply like the Shuttles.

I'm wondering what would happen if we actually crushed the whole thing into Mars and then when we finally go there we already have a shit ton of iron there. Not sure how Mars would like that lol

[Master Disaster]

10 hours ago, TheRandomness said:

I mean they could just pull it into orbit and slowly mine it out, giving more metals and such over a much longer period of time whilst keeping it secret, therefore the economy wouldn't die. But hey, what do I know as a 16 yr old?

3 things...

 

1) How the hell do they slow it down enough to keep it at a stable and reachable orbit with the earth?

2) Given the thing is made of metal I'd imagine that would have a fairly huge affect on tides

3) How would no one notice a second non shiney moon in the sky every night?

[TheRandomness]

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

3 things...

 

1) How the hell do they slow it down enough to keep it at a stable and reachable orbit with the earth?

2) Given the thing is made of metal I'd imagine that would have a fairly huge affect on tides

3) How would no one notice a second non shiney moon in the sky every night?

Using Kerbal physics(TM) they could grab it twice and stop its orbit. Also, who said it had to orbit earth? It just needs to be close(ish)

[Bsmith]

11 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

I'm wondering what would happen if we actually crushed the whole thing into Mars and then when we finally go there we already have a shit ton of iron there. Not sure how Mars would like that lol

considering the fact we actually know very little about mars it could go two ways.

 

1) the impact will create enough heat to warm up the planet a little, melting some of the water that's on the planet and possible release of other gasses/fluids which allow for the creation of a very thin and minimal atmosphere which keeps the warmth inside, functioning as a natural biosphere that with enough time allows for live to evolve on it own, on mars, which could make colonization much more viable in the end.

 

2) the meteorite crashes on mars and releases some gasses and fluids, but not enough to create a atmosphere meaning the heat will escape and the gasses/fluids will freeze again, we now have mars with a huge chunk of metal on it that we can't reach or mine easily, but would be very useful for humanity if we could reach it.

 

this are two simple and superficial possibilities. of course there are more things able to happen, but they will fall between those extremes.

[Tieox]

I vote we land, and setup a BBQ on it.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

Using Kerbal physics(TM) they could grab it twice and stop its orbit. Also, who said it had to orbit earth? It just needs to be close(ish)

The word orbit has implications, it means close enough to a celestial body that it can achieve a state of stable free fall around said celestial body. If you want it in orbit then it has to be pretty close(ish).

[Tam3n]

Too much trouble trying to slow it down, lets just slam it to the moon 

 

 

I know it's not really a good idea.