Hubble Telescope Captures a Rare Asteroid Worth 70k Times the Global Economy(robbreport.com)
robbreport.com
Hubble Telescope Captures a Rare Asteroid Worth 70k Times the Global Economy
https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/rare-psyche-asteroid-worth-way-more-than-the-global-economy-1234577976/
86 comments
We live over a much larger ball full of Fe and Ni.
In fact, the actual value of a hard to get Fe reserve is 0. The ground is full of it, and it's much easier to get here. We would have to compare the costs of mining an asteroid with deep mining on Earth to discover if the Ni has any value, it's very likely 0 too, but I don't think anybody knows for sure.
In fact, the actual value of a hard to get Fe reserve is 0. The ground is full of it, and it's much easier to get here. We would have to compare the costs of mining an asteroid with deep mining on Earth to discover if the Ni has any value, it's very likely 0 too, but I don't think anybody knows for sure.
If you're referring to the earth's iron-nickel core, then the comparison is moot. Mining an asteroid is theoretically feasible. Mining the earth's core is not.
Hum, no. The crust is full of Fe already. It is probably much cheaper to get it from dirt than from this asteroid, but it's concentrated on a huge amount of places.
If it was about the core, the answer for Ni would also be obvious.
If it was about the core, the answer for Ni would also be obvious.
> We would have to compare the costs of mining an asteroid with deep mining on Earth to discover if the Ni has any value
Perhaps I misunderstood. What do you mean by "deep mining" for nickel?
Perhaps I misunderstood. What do you mean by "deep mining" for nickel?
> It is probably much cheaper to get it from dirt than from this asteroid
Well, delivery costs play a role as well.
If you're looking for iron for use on Earth, you're right. If you're looking for iron to use in space construction, the asteroid material is likely much cheaper.
If one believes (as I do) that the human race will either move into space or go extinct, then asteroids will be far more important for the future of our society.
Well, delivery costs play a role as well.
If you're looking for iron for use on Earth, you're right. If you're looking for iron to use in space construction, the asteroid material is likely much cheaper.
If one believes (as I do) that the human race will either move into space or go extinct, then asteroids will be far more important for the future of our society.
Simple solution: just crash this 140 mile diameter asteroid into Australia so it's accessible and cheap to mine. Afterwards the prices of iron and nickel would drop to zero!
> Afterwards the prices of iron and nickel would drop to zero!
...and so would the prices of everything else. As well as the number of life-bearing planets in the solar system.
...and so would the prices of everything else. As well as the number of life-bearing planets in the solar system.
It'll be much more useful when we want to build a ship in space rather than assuming we'd want to bring it back down into our gravity well.
Imagine the cost of launching that much iron into space...
Imagine the cost of launching that much iron into space...
There was a lot of inflation in Spain during the 16th century because of all of the gold and silver mined from the Americas. Some estimate prices rose by 300% in a century.
The rise in prices made Spanish exports uncompetitive, forcing Spain to spend its bullion to buy finished imports from other countries.
The rise in prices made Spanish exports uncompetitive, forcing Spain to spend its bullion to buy finished imports from other countries.
US inflation has been over 1000% in the last century. Lots of money being made in the last century, and lots more people. Sorry for the tangent, had to look it up.
The New World supplied Spain with untold amounts of gold. It had an effect but gold continues to have value.
And ruined Spain's economy after the initial boom.
It seems impossible to predict. The reason the price would not go to zero would be that, at the new lower price point, newly viable applications are found. What will these applications be? We can only guess.
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What are the properties of Nickel? Would we have Nickel pipes and faucets, and Nickel covered cars?
We already do. Several grades of stainless steel use a lot of nickel, and these are used in many applications. Also it is quite expensive which prevents it from being used generally.
>Surely something comparable has happened in the past where a big reserve of some rare mineral has been found and monopolized, and its price didn't go to zero.
Aluminum. Initially so expensive that the tip of the Washington Monument was made with it, then price plummetted after new refining methods.
Aluminum. Initially so expensive that the tip of the Washington Monument was made with it, then price plummetted after new refining methods.
With concerns about there being so much Fe and Ni that the market would be completely destabilized, it makes me wonder what it would cost to mine and smelt it all into raw materials. It must require a staggering amount of energy.
There's plenty of diamonds around and they're still doing OK. I guess it depends on someone's ability to drip feed it into the market and fix the prices. Kinda like bitcoin whales too.
When the king of Mali would go on sabbatical their country was so much more wealthy than everywhere else that they would spread so much wealth they would topple whole monetary systems.
Not to mentioning the costs of mining and transportation in space will put a floor on the price.
The concept of inflation was created in the 1500s with the discovery of gold in the Americas.
Rare materials are valuable because they're rare. If we brought Psyche16 home, they wouldn't be rare, and wouldn't be valuable.
Additionally, a lot of the value of Psyche16 is in iron and nickel. Those aren't rare on Earth -- most of the cost of iron and nickel is labour and energy in mining & refining them. Yes, Psyche16 is much more pure than currently accessible Earth ores, but that's more than offset by the fact that it's in outer space.
Additionally, a lot of the value of Psyche16 is in iron and nickel. Those aren't rare on Earth -- most of the cost of iron and nickel is labour and energy in mining & refining them. Yes, Psyche16 is much more pure than currently accessible Earth ores, but that's more than offset by the fact that it's in outer space.
Increased material availability would lead to economic growth and increasing demand. Consequently, although not all of the metal would sell for market value on the first day (in any case, it wouldn't even all arrive on the first day), you might get closer to the posted value than you're supposing.
> Increased material availability would lead to economic growth and increasing demand.
Not for iron and nickel. Iron is the most abundant element on earth and the 4th most abundant in the crust. It's practically everywhere. Almost all of the cost comes from processing and transporting it. Even if there ever were a shortage, it'd almost certainly be more economical to mine it from the mantle or crust than fly to the asteroid belt and bring it back. Iron is really far down the list of elements we need to worry about running out of.
The article's kind of silly, TBH.
Not for iron and nickel. Iron is the most abundant element on earth and the 4th most abundant in the crust. It's practically everywhere. Almost all of the cost comes from processing and transporting it. Even if there ever were a shortage, it'd almost certainly be more economical to mine it from the mantle or crust than fly to the asteroid belt and bring it back. Iron is really far down the list of elements we need to worry about running out of.
The article's kind of silly, TBH.
You hit the nail on the head there. As you say, the value is in it's location (specifically the cost of transportation of iron to that bit of space). We could use it in situ to manufacture spacecraft.
The material, when you sell it next year, has a lower net present value than when you sell it today. If you spread out bringing the stuff to market for decades or centuries, that will have a marked effect on the posted value.
Then the solution is simple, spread out the mining operation.
No it wouldn't, especially if energy to convert it skyrocket.
This may sound like a paradox, but it's true:
Making nickel so easily obtainable that it's almost worthless, would be incredibly valuable to society.
Making nickel so easily obtainable that it's almost worthless, would be incredibly valuable to society.
Value and price are only loosely connected. Apart from resent history where we've made lots of it dirty, everyone has pretty much always had this highly valuable commodity delivered to them at no price.
Where people here are criticizing the article for its hyperbolic "everyone would be a billionaire!" rhetoric, it's not because we don't believe the metals are valuable, it's because the article conflates price with value.
Where people here are criticizing the article for its hyperbolic "everyone would be a billionaire!" rhetoric, it's not because we don't believe the metals are valuable, it's because the article conflates price with value.
The best value adds are the worst value captures.
This is the premise of Jules Verne's The Chase of the Golden Meteor.
Don’t have to bring it to earth then. Might mining and using it in space to build a space station be cheaper than flying metal to the orbit from Earth?
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if one brought it back in secret, it could be rationed and slowly brought to market for generations and bring in great wealth before disrupting the rarity.
Yes, bring it back in secret. Hide it behind the moon.
I guess? It would take a lot of manpower, the probability of it staying a secret is very small. It would probably be easier to set up an illicit currency printing operation without anyone knowing :D
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Iron and nickel are not that attractive. But if you could nab a gold one... I think there'll be a huge market for gold-titanium alloys.
Are you perhaps thinking of TiN, which has a nice golden hue and properties that are excellent for certain applications? It’s even marketed as “gold”, especially on pans.
Titanium is quite literally dirt cheap (if you don’t need it refined anyway), and nitrogen is the majority component of air.
Titanium is quite literally dirt cheap (if you don’t need it refined anyway), and nitrogen is the majority component of air.
Rather that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_gold
TiN is a ceramic.
TiN is a ceramic.
Is a gold titanium alloy any good? Few materials become more useful when alloyed with gold...
I have never heard of any use for a titanium-gold alloy.
On the other hand, titanium-palladium alloys are very useful because they have better corrosion resistance in various chemical media.
Palladium can be found in the iron-nickel alloys from meteorites and asteroids in relatively large concentrations, together with the other platinum-group elements.
On the other hand, titanium-palladium alloys are very useful because they have better corrosion resistance in various chemical media.
Palladium can be found in the iron-nickel alloys from meteorites and asteroids in relatively large concentrations, together with the other platinum-group elements.
It's a fairly new material but it already has some uses.
https://phys.org/news/2016-07-lab-titanium-gold-alloy-harder...
https://phys.org/news/2016-07-lab-titanium-gold-alloy-harder...
According to that description, that titanium-gold mixture appears to be an inter-metallic compound, not an alloy.
While the hardness and corrosion resistance should be excellent, as described there, inter-metallic compounds are brittle and it is unlikely that a Ti-Au compound will have better properties than usual and cheaper tough ceramics, like silicon nitride or zirconia.
The most important advantage of metallic alloys over alternatives for structural applications is their much higher toughness, an inter-metallic Ti-Au compound does not have this advantage, so I doubt that it can find an application.
While the hardness and corrosion resistance should be excellent, as described there, inter-metallic compounds are brittle and it is unlikely that a Ti-Au compound will have better properties than usual and cheaper tough ceramics, like silicon nitride or zirconia.
The most important advantage of metallic alloys over alternatives for structural applications is their much higher toughness, an inter-metallic Ti-Au compound does not have this advantage, so I doubt that it can find an application.
The true value of it is not on earth but in space itself.
If it is used to build mega city sized space station then its value would be multi fold of that on earth.
If it is used to build mega city sized space station then its value would be multi fold of that on earth.
This. Space based mining is going to be huge, and probably the real reason spacex exists, as colonising Mars doesn't really make any sense. Building our own habitats in space will be how we populate the solar system, rather than trying to live on a dead rock like Mars.
The sense of colonizing Mars is abundance of raw materials (a whole planet worth right there) and the convenience of gravity (put something down, it tends to stay there). Space has benefits, but is defined by being devoid of resources, and stuff tends to drift off.
Right. Mars real estate is not as desirable as Earth real estate, but on the other hand there's a whole planet just sitting there ripe for the taking.
Someone is going to take it, you can bet.
Someone is going to take it, you can bet.
Might also be worth nothing that there may be all kinds of new tech from fabrication methods that will only work in zero-g too. Factories in space means that everything in space becomes cheaper. The logistics would probably be hell to start, but I have to think that machines could be much simpler if they didn't have to worry about weight and heat as much. I am probably being naive here about how hard it would be, but I can't help but be excited for the future.
This. Moving stuff up and down the gravity well is expensive. Having an abundant supply of mundane metals already above that well would vastly improve launch costs, there being much less to launch.
The trick is getting asteroid mining, transport, and refining costs under $640/lb (current Falcon Heavy to-LEO cost).
The trick is getting asteroid mining, transport, and refining costs under $640/lb (current Falcon Heavy to-LEO cost).
You don’t need to go under it per se. The supply of falcon heavy launches is still limited in both quantity and scheduling. I’m sure its price will go up when the demand increases to provide for ferrying material up.
1. Supply of Heavy launches seems a matter of little demand. There’s a big enough profit margin that seems little reason to get more greedy - they WANT increased demand.
2. Competition is the issue: can we mine & deliver metals from an asteroid to LEO cheaper than lifting same out of the gravity well?
2b. Might that consideration of ground-to-orbit resources include removing materials from future terrestrial use?
2. Competition is the issue: can we mine & deliver metals from an asteroid to LEO cheaper than lifting same out of the gravity well?
2b. Might that consideration of ground-to-orbit resources include removing materials from future terrestrial use?
That's kinda what I was thinking. Everyone who is saying 'oh the massive supply would send the current market prices to 0' isn't thinking about the massive economic growth potential of new space based building activities.
I wonder if there's a way you could calculate it's "true" value, which would account for the diminished cost of nickel and iron such an extracted asteroid would surely cause. I'm thinking how aluminum used to be worth more than gold and an estimate from the mid-late 19th century would say that we should all be rich from abundant aluminum.
Yeah. In the future one would say "Of course the legs of my table are made from gold-titanium alloy. It's just the cheapest stuff around. Besides, you couldn't have them this thin and light in any other material and that would balloon transport cost and messed up feng shui. It's just a normal table from Ikea."
Yes. See aluminium.
(Was very expensive before we figured out how to manufacture it cheaply)
(Was very expensive before we figured out how to manufacture it cheaply)
That and would be intresting to sort of theorize beyond that "If this isn't rare anymore... where might it be used that it wasn't before?"
> If they could just kindly bring the asteroid back, every person on the planet—all 7.5 billion of us—would get roughly $1.3 billion.
As long as you ignore the laws of supply in demand.
As long as you ignore the laws of supply in demand.
Maybe I am missing something but while the monetary value of the metals would not add up to that sum of money, wouldn’t we actually add a bunch of value to our global economy if we made these metals virtually free, therefore making the cost of goods associated with those metals go down significantly?
As long as you limit depth of your analysis to math taught in the 4th grade. :-)
Perhaps there’s more value in bringing it home to an Earth orbit rather than landing it. Then using it for space based manufacturing. The cost savings of not having to lift that much metal from the gravity well may be the asteroid’s real value.
Might be better to crash it into Mars, then build settlements on mars to mine it there and could use as needed for the settlements.
Interesting idea. You’d probably need to take a multi century view because it would eject a lot of dust into the atmosphere for a long time. You also run the risk of damaging the planet or it’s orbit. But assuming you achieve the goal, it’s one hell of a resource.
This seems like the right way to think about it to me. Space manufacturing seems like an inevitability at some point in the future.
> every person on the planet—all 7.5 billion of us—would get roughly $1.3 billion.
This is Cunningham's Law applied to attract publicity.
This is Cunningham's Law applied to attract publicity.
That's a generous interpretation. I'm not entirely convinced the author knows that it doesn't work this way. Some people do have a very simplistic understanding of money and value, and the quoted statement would "make sense" to them at face value. These are often the same people who say "free X" when X is funded by tax dollars.
One could say that the Robb Report is targeted at a readership that has a very simplistic understanding of money and value.
The article is a bit sensationalist and free of substance. The asteroid is interesting though. NASA finds it so interesting in fact that they will have a space probe visit it in 2026 (it will launch next year and take 4 years to go there) [1]
What's the realistic potential profit from this asteroid in terms of space mining? Obviously not trillions. Anything you mine there you need to bring back, and the delta-v from the asteroid belt to low earth orbit is about 5 km/s. From the rocket equation it follows that you need about 2 tons of propellant for each ton of cargo. But unfortunately, you'll need to bring that fuel with you from the Earth. You end up with many, many tons of propellant for each ton of cargo. So anything that has a price less than about 10 times the cost of the propellant has no chance of ever being profitable, so iron and nickel are out.
Gold is not though. Or platinum, or other precious metals.
All in all, the wikipedia page on potential space mining projects lists the estimated profit from this asteroid at $1.78 BN. [2]
[1] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/as...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Potential_targ...
What's the realistic potential profit from this asteroid in terms of space mining? Obviously not trillions. Anything you mine there you need to bring back, and the delta-v from the asteroid belt to low earth orbit is about 5 km/s. From the rocket equation it follows that you need about 2 tons of propellant for each ton of cargo. But unfortunately, you'll need to bring that fuel with you from the Earth. You end up with many, many tons of propellant for each ton of cargo. So anything that has a price less than about 10 times the cost of the propellant has no chance of ever being profitable, so iron and nickel are out.
Gold is not though. Or platinum, or other precious metals.
All in all, the wikipedia page on potential space mining projects lists the estimated profit from this asteroid at $1.78 BN. [2]
[1] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/as...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Potential_targ...
Headlines like this are what keep the average person so far away from understanding money and economics. It's so absurd for so many reasons.
Rare metals are nice but I like carbonaceous chondrite asteroids better... the ones that are fikked with gas and coal and have some kind of skin that keeps in the gas.
A Nickel (USA 5-cent coin) weighs almost exactly 5g, which is useful to know.
So 200 nickels is a kg.
16 Psyche's mass is 2.72x10^19 kg. Let's say 10^19 kgs of that is nickel.
With that you could mint 2x10^21 US-nickels, equivalent to 10^20 US-dollars.
The article reports that the asteroid is only worth 10^19 US-dollars, so we could buy 10 more asteroids with all the nickels from 16 Psyche.
And thus solve all the world's problems.
So 200 nickels is a kg.
16 Psyche's mass is 2.72x10^19 kg. Let's say 10^19 kgs of that is nickel.
With that you could mint 2x10^21 US-nickels, equivalent to 10^20 US-dollars.
The article reports that the asteroid is only worth 10^19 US-dollars, so we could buy 10 more asteroids with all the nickels from 16 Psyche.
And thus solve all the world's problems.
Could anyone explain how exactly they know an asteroid is made out of certain material?
What data are they observing from a telescope that tells them it’s iron and nickel, vs some other metal, vs rock? Especially with such precision around the composition
What data are they observing from a telescope that tells them it’s iron and nickel, vs some other metal, vs rock? Especially with such precision around the composition
From https://www.swri.org/press-release/16-psyche-asteroid-surfac...
> “We were able to identify for the first time on any asteroid what we think are iron oxide ultraviolet absorption bands,” she said. “This is an indication that oxidation is happening on the asteroid, which could be a result of the solar wind hitting the surface.”
You can also calculate density from gravity interactions, but I don't know if asteroids are big enough for that.
> “We were able to identify for the first time on any asteroid what we think are iron oxide ultraviolet absorption bands,” she said. “This is an indication that oxidation is happening on the asteroid, which could be a result of the solar wind hitting the surface.”
You can also calculate density from gravity interactions, but I don't know if asteroids are big enough for that.
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/our-solar-system/72-our-sol...
Infrared spectrometers.
Infrared spectrometers.
To put this into context, this is enough to build dozens of Death Stars.
Will definitely play a role in the Forbes richest person in the solar system one day.
Does anyone else find it annoying that people have been valuing objects in space?
Why, do you think objects in space don't have value?
Beltalowda, walowda ke!
But what is the actual value of something like this? Surely something comparable has happened in the past where a big reserve of some rare mineral has been found and monopolized, and its price didn't go to zero.