But, but… it is known, Khaleesi.
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what exactly makes these worth anything? Other than the fact that they are rare on earth and getting them would cost a fortune the actual “raw materials” is mostly mundane. This is just an exercise in bad accounting.
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THEY will find a way to “solve” those problems. For example:
Step 1: Voice concerns about the economy collapsing due to overabundance of cheap metals.
Step 2: Impose laws against asteroid mining (TODO: look for potential allies among environmentalists)
Step 3: Develop ways to identify unlicensed “alien metals” by their isotope composition, to enforce said laws internationally.
Step 4: Grant special mining permits to a select few.
Problem solved. No economic collapse due to overabundance.
The terrestrial mining industry bankrupt, and they had it coming.
Space belongs to Elon Musk’s evil great-granddaughter and her minions.
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Meh. Platinum, while of some industrial use, is mostly valued for it’s rarity and non-reactive nature.
Here’s what we do with platinum:
If you consider that the supply being used for vehicle emissions control will be reduced as the transition to electric vehicles occurs, that leaves jewelry. Going into space and fetching more platinum would only act to dilute the value of the terrestrial supply, pulling into question the very economic feasibility of asteroid mining.
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That’s what I was thinking too, only different. A sufficiently unscrupulous businessman could just point a asteroid towards the earth with the intention to mine it once all the mess it created has settled down enough.
Shouldn’t you be asking the Morlocks to do that? The Eloi would have no understanding of how to land asteroids, or any reason to do so.
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Exactly.
Platinum is now priced at around $1K per ounce. If asteroids of the stuff are mined, the price would probably fall to around 5 cents per ounce.
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I have been thinking of writing an alien invasion story. The problem is - they would have no motivation to invade. Lifeless worlds and asteroids would provide easier to attain resources in the form of water and rare earth metals.
So my conclusion was, they would invade just to invade. Though I decided too that a lot of the concepts of space travel in science fiction simply never pan out as possible. i.e. faster than light, shields, and anti-gravity. They would have to land massive base ships and attack from there.
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We could price things in ozau instead of just oz.
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That’s not a bad thing. Platinum is used in catalytic converters because it is an excellent catalyst, and not just for that particular use. The limiting factor in using it has been its high cost.
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Things that are rare are planets in the Goldilocks zone. Our real estate is massively valuable as it is far easier to invade a planet, displace native habitats than to painstakingly transforming some inhospitable rock. Hell our dirt ball even has a liquid center that acts as it’s own radiation shield, that’s like having a finished basement.
And if they’re anything like us then the number one reason for traveling to an alien world is to seek out new life and new civilizations and then have sex with them.
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GRILLZ FOR EVERYBODY!
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It’s not about the amount of the resource or it’s availability. It’s about having the control of that resources availability.
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Something that could build massive, generational ships could include massive botanical areas, ala Silent Running. Why would they need alien plants that would be more likely to be poisonous? Their ability to GMO foods would be pretty great as well.
Yeah, but that could be awkward. “What do you mean your males have penises??? Eeewwww!!!”
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Yeah, I thought there was a great number of assumptions that needed to be made to assert that asteroids were full of platinum, etc.
There’s really no money to be made on Mars itself, though. Space mining operations, should they be economically feasible, are better done with machines. There’s no reason to take the extra steps of sending people and to Mars.
Unfortunately most of the existential threats wouldn’t be much impacted by having human beings spread out across a solar system. You might as well put colonies on the bottom of the ocean, or Antarctica - cheaper and with just as many benefits in that regard. But they’re not as cool, of course.
Fuel cells?
Many materials are highly valuable only because of their rarity. If they were available in massive quantities, their value would plummet.
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So many commentators have a biased concept of value. If you think of value based on utilitarian use rather than fetish scarcity, astroid mining might make more sense. I think that instead of looking back at the ‘gold standard’, we should look forward to the ‘joule standard’ (value based on energy). The economics of such a view would tend more towards sustainability.
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Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.
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They occasionally cut them out of cars in our parking lot…
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The current terrestrial supply is sufficient as miners worry demand will diminish as electric cars win out over fuel cells.
http://www.reuters.com/article/platinum-miners-fuelcells-idUSL5N0YI2YW20150529
“But people are buying electric cars…and that’s not the case for fuel cells.”…“If fuel cells are not adopted, we may have no auto market for platinum by 2050.”
However, fixed position fuel cells may have a place, assuming they are on the receiving end of a locally sourced fuel.
