Xref: utzoo sci.astro:13702 sci.electronics:20826 sci.physics:20155 sci.research:1727 sci.aeronautics:2264 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!dirac!gibbs.physics.purdue.edu!hal From: hal@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (Hal Chambers) Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.electronics,sci.physics,sci.research,sci.aeronautics Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA. Keywords: gold Message-ID: <5248@dirac.physics.purdue.edu> Date: 11 Jun 91 19:40:02 GMT References: Sender: news@dirac.physics.purdue.edu Followup-To: sci.astro Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept, W.Lafayette, IN Lines: 27 >>>Today's Washington Post reports that an asteroid has been found orbiting the Sun at a distance of about 20 million miles from Earth (closest point). It apparently contains 10000 tons of gold and 100000 tons of platinum, as well as 10 billion tons of iron and 1 billion tons of nickel. Its estimated >>>worth was put at around 1 trillion dollars. In article sehari@iastate.edu (Sehari Babak) writes: >This might be one of the first real applications of Space technology. I say NASA should issue stocks to built a space craft to go and bring that thing down. This could open up another very lucrative investment, a side from satellites. The technology we gain could help us mine other things in the space too. Then, boldly going were no man has gone before makes business >sense to. >I assume this could be possible if the price of gold goes much higher. let us forget about mars and concentrate on this, for now. After all, who needs cheap >marsian dart. =================== So this means the asteroid is no more than 0.001% platinum and 0.0001% gold. How does this compare with terrestrial ores? Besides, a body of 10^9 tons doesn't sound too feasable to "bring down" to Earth. Hal Chambers hal@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu ------------ "In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." - D. Adams