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NASA Is Planning Mission To An Asteroid Worth $10 Quintillion (usatoday.com)
New submitter kugo2006 writes: NASA announced a plan to research 16 Psyche, an asteroid potentially as large as Mars and primarily composed of Iron and Nickel. The rock is unique in that it has an exposed core, likely a result of a series of collisions, according to Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche's principal investigator. The mission's spacecraft would launch in 2023 and arrive in 2030. According to Global News, Elkins-Tanton calculates that the iron in 16 Psyche would be worth $10,000 quadrillion ($10 quintillion).
There isn't that much money in the entire world economy. So who can buy this stuff?
"Potentially as large as Mars"? According to Wikipedia: Psyche16: 200km in diameter. Mars: 6800km in diameter
dumping that much extra iron into the economy would make the "value" close to zero.
and pretty soon, we're talking about real money.
Somebody forgot about shipping and handling.
It's all about location, location, location. You got a buyer for that $10 Quintillion USD worth of iron protoplanet located in the astroid belt? Didn't think so.
> an asteroid potentially as large as Mars
... could be part of what was an earlier planet perhaps as large as Mars". The asteroid itself it nowhere nears as large as Mars (about 2800x smaller by mass).
Note that the USA Today article actually says "NASA wants to know whether the asteroid
Those NASA guys are just always looking for more funding
If you put a flag on it, it is finders-keepers.
The only way you're getting a quadrillion dollars is by setting that thing on a collision course and holding the entire planet for ransom.
The more common metals would probably not be shipped to Earth. It would make sense to use them for heavy manufacturing in space, or on Mars. If you keep the common metals in space, you don't need to lift them from Earth to space at great expense.
The rare stuff might be worth shipping to Earth. Unless they start manufacturing everything (including electronics) in space and then drop the final products to Earth.
I have no idea where the "potentially as large as Mars" came from - this is estimated as approx. 200km in diameter. Mars is over 3000 times as large.
The 200km estimate is even in the original article.
It's raw materials for future space expansion, when we will bootstrap a space economy.
If that much iron and nickel becomes available cheaply, prices will drop extremely. The only way they will not, is if the cost is in the extraction. For an example, see Aluminum, which is very much non-rare, but getting it into an usable form costs a lot. So if every ton of this iron costs $1'000'000 to extract, its value is negative as market-prices are a lot lower. Basically the only value this iron has for the foreseeable future is that it does not need to be lifted out of a gravity well.
Morale: People with no understanding of capitalism and markets should not make such estimates.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"NASA wants to know whether the asteroid, thought to be made of iron and nickel, could be part of what was an earlier planet perhaps as large as Mars."
The asteroid is not as large as Mars...
I wonder how you're supposed to smelt it in space. Perhaps space air is flammable?
The space water is flammable after electrolysis. :-)
/off topic : De beers has a massive oversupply which they simply storage rather than sell and have diamond sold at their real price : nearly worthless. The value of the diamond is not really set by the market, due to the quasi monopoly. Otherwise it would be set by artificial diamond which , when properly maid , are not differential to naked eye to natural diamond. And that price is 1/100 of the natural diamond price, probably less if we started mass produce them.
No, but he will grab you by your pussy and throw you out back to you stupid smelly india.
If we can name it after Trump, does it matter?
Great news! At last, slashdot enlarge your psyche.
Mars Mean radius: 3,389.5±0.2 km
Psyche: 253.2 ± 4 km
Here I thought for a moment the mission was worth (or: would cost) 10 quintillion (18 zeroes if using short scale) dollars.
And now that the fourth Zimbabwean dollar has been demonetized, one can't even use that pun any more (from the WP article: "The Zimbabwean government stated that it would credit 5 US dollars to domestic bank accounts with balances of up to 175 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars and exchange Zimbabwean dollars for US dollars at a rate of 1 USD to 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars to accounts with balances above 175 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars."
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
* "in 2014 a mission to Psyche was proposed to NASA"
* "A team led by Lindy Elkins-Tanton
* "The mission was approved by NASA on January 4, 2017 and is targeted to launch in October of 2023, arriving at the asteroid in 2030, following an Earth gravity assist spacecraft maneuver in 2024 and a Mars flyby in 2025." So mebe I'll get to watch the progress in my retirement.
The Globalnews and Usatoday articles strike me as being tarted up (read: dumbed down) with that gee whizz number of dollars.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Person A: NASA is planning a mission to an asteroid worth $10 quintillion!
Person B: What? No way! That doesn't even make sense.
Person A: Seriously! I saw it on Slashdot!
Person B: I don't believe you. Which asteroid is it, wise guy?
Person A: Psyche!
by Cyphase ( 907627 )
Why, that's almost 7,746,000 dollars squared !
The largest estimate for the size of Psyche is 253 km across. Mars is about 6800 km in diameter, enormously larger.
Ok, people pointed out the complete bullshit number about the actual - inflation corrected worth.
But there is another vector that needs to be taken into consideration, that has a devastating effect on bigger space mining undertakings.
To make it short if done on a big scale space mining could change the earths orbit and rotation period.
And this is what most fly-highs do not take into consideration.
1.) every planetary body in our solar system is there and "does" that because it has a mass, and a certain kinetic energy
a.) also mass distribution plays a role (moon tide = earth has changing mass distribution, "wobble, wobble")
2.) .. and interacts with other bodies through the "mystic and largely unkown" force of gravitation - its so unkown many people just jump and do other silly things and consider to survive ..
3.) these properties make the planetary bodies move in such elliptecal shapes as they do.
From 3.) change them by mass and the momentum/energy that is "glued" to the mass, you change how the planetary bodies will behave.
Yes, this happens contiously. Earth is loosing as well as gaining mass - naturally. Helium can escape the atmosphere, but meteors are hitting the earth, transfering mass and energy.
And the Apollo missions transfered mass to the moon.
The key point is the scale you'd do that and when thinking in "deathstar" categories you can predict a big change.
If you can't imaging it, go ice skating and do a pierotte and pull your arms to your body.
What in consequence might happen I can only guess , however I know something will happen.
Because you change the system on a big scale. .. our planets relative distance to the sun has considerable effect on our climate. .. the day/night cycle has considerable effect on our life.
I call this the real "masseffect"
There is a lot more iron than that much closer... right here, just a few thousand klicks under our feet in the earth's core.
I seriously hope no one believes they can bring any of it back. There's plenty of asteroids with useful metals and planets with them too. It would cost soooooo much more to bring any of it back and having it crash to earth would be a really dumb option.
Ever wonder where you get the materials for a Death Star (or a Dyson Sphere)?
Problem solved!
I claim this planet in the name of Mars! Isn't that lovely?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In my experience knowledge economy is mostly based on ignorance. It has to be of course as without ignorance we cannot sell knowledge. That is not what I mean however. I mean that ever since this knowledge based economy thing is showing in media I also see more and more ignorance especially among knowledge based economy workers and MBA drones that work in the area. OC I do not expect these people to know enough to take part in a discussion on why Roman Empire fell for instance. What I do expect is that they can have some idea about consequences of their actions. Usually they do not. Their knowledge does not reach that far.
Elkins-Tanton calculates that the iron in 16 Psyche would be worth $10,000 quadrillion ($10 quintillion).
Yes, the ten pounds of iron they'll be able to transport back will cost that because of the enormous cost of the space mission to retrieve it. But it will be worth it because of the awful iron shortage we're suffering through.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
If your calculation is correct, it would mean a solid ball with a radius of 159km, which is quite larger than the 100km radius of the actual asteroid.
JAXA has already completed an asteroid mission, Hayabusa, and a second one, Hayabusa 2, is currently in progress. Just hire JAXA to build another probe, and use their crews. The USA and Japan can work out a deal to have JAXA buy space on some other NASA mission.
That reminds me of John Elway on Trevor Siemian. Siemian was the last quarterback drafted that year. He had already lined up a job in real estate because he figured he might not be drafted - he wasn't that good. Fans were surprised and a bit dismayed when Elway drafted him for the Broncos, who were a powerful team -they won the Superbowl that year. Elway said Siemian "has potential".
It turns out that in his first year as a starter Siemian had a an 18-10 touchdown-to-interception ratio and an 84.6 passer rating, both stats better than Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler in the previous Superbowl-winning season.
Elway later reminded one fan who had been dismayed by the Siemian pick that Elway does indeed know how to spot potential:
http://www.si.com/extra-mustar...
Mars would get instant global warming, and all the iron they need to establish an industry. You'd probably just have to wait several thousand years for the planet to turn solid enough again before sending people.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
For cash sums like this, can we please retire billions and quintillions and use SI units now they are more common? Like this would be 10 Exa-dollars, right ? It's too confusing having two naming conventions.
Oh yeah? I found an asteroid worth a Kabilliinzillion dollars.
Actually, large amounts of metal outside a gravity well is extremely valuable for space exploration, since launch costs right now are thousands of dollars per pound.
Furthermore, once outside a gravity well, it's fairly cheap to move stuff around. If we start mining asteroids for metal, we can move that metal back to earth orbit at almost no cost. We could even deorbit it, although that would really be a waste.
Right now, we don't have a very good idea of the exact composition of Earth's core. If this asteroid is a chunk of planetary core, a few tests and samples could tel us quite a lot about how our own planet works. This includes data related to planetary magnetic field generation, radioactive decay heat production, etc. This sort of data can tell us a lot about things like why Mars is dead while the Earth supports life. And we can extend this knowledge to assist in the search for life-supporting planets elsewhere.
Have gnu, will travel.
Is Putin's bottom. Discuss ..
I honestly don't get the hate for MBAs. I went to a top-10 MBA school and landed a job that pays me $300k a year and in which I do truly impactful work, and few people would be as qualified to do it.
I'm sure your impactful work benefits mankind no end.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Did they teach you how to sell your mother to the highest bidder, and replace american workers with useless monkeys? You ass.
Literally nothing you said in the summary is true.
It is almost 1% the mass of the asteroid belt, not nearly the size of mars
It is believed to be the exposed iron core of a proto-planet.
I'm sure your impactful work benefits mankind no end.
His work helps get (and keeps) people employed. Putting food on the table for an unknown number of people and their families.
So, at least in the short term, their work is more important than some jackass screaming "Global Warming! Global Warming!" while jumping up and down with their hair on fire and hoping someone will give them a grant so THEY can put food on the table.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Thanks to eight years of Obama, the only skill set in demand is for gender reassignment surgeons.
The $10 Quadrillion figure is total baloney. You can't just take the current value and extrapolate, because the price would fall as the supply rises. A one carat diamond may be worth $10,000, but if there were suddenly a trillion of them, they would be worth next to nothing, and people would use them as gravel in their driveways.
The $10 Quadrillion figure is also a pretty good signal that the current market is unable to respond adequately to meet demand, no? Let somebody satiate that unsatisfied demand, and see what humanity does with it. Certainly that will mean the collapse and disappearance of some current mining industries, but it could also mean the emergence of completely unexpected industries on the demand side of things.
forget the billionaires try jason rothschild and son nathan
Sciencedaily has reported that this mission is capped at $450M USD.
Why, exactly, are you exhibiting faulty thinking?
One must not necessarily "win" at the expense of the other...
It takes all kinds man. And tunnel vision like yours helps nothing and nobody.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Jim Benson (RIP) made this exact claim 20+ years ago when he founded SpaceDev.
Here's a 1997 analysis:
http://wc.arizona.edu/papers/91/22/01_2_m.html
I'm hopeful it will finally come to pass.
Every year these asteroids are left unmined would be marked down as 10 septillion dollars *stolen* from them by the evil space pirates at NASA.
The value of the asteroid was put in for the president, I assume. He is only interested in Good Deals , not so much in scientific knowledge (or any truths in general).
Didn't work out so well for them.
Or maybe that is our strategic reserve if we need to fling an iron bullet at some distant world for some reason...
Though funny retort from advanced civ: "Hai guys, thx for all the iron, k thx bai! :) ;) ;P"