44 sats \ 13 replies \ @grayruby 8 Nov \ on: How Can Mining Asteroids in the Future Make Us Richer Today? econ
I feel rich but it has nothing to do with space rocks. Space rocks are very cool but I question the economic viability of mining them. Maybe for use in space but I have always thought the idea of shooting a rocket into space (expensive), carrying robots, and other mining equipment (expensive and heavy), landing on an asteroid (expensive and difficult), deploying the mining equipment (probably fairly easy but getting it to work on unfamiliar surfaces, highly difficult), then bringing heavy materials back to earth (expensive and difficult).
Seems like something the government will love. Spend 2 trillion or something crazy to end up brining back 500B worth of resources.
Maybe we will eventually not need to launch a rocket back and forth every time we want to transport robots, equipment or goods back and forth but instead can slingshot pods filled stuff back and forth. I think we are quite a ways away from that though.
Having only expertise from Kerbal Space Program, I imagine this could work at lower cost if we had manufacturing facilities on the moon or in orbital platforms. That would reduce the need to constantly send material up, and we'd primarily be sending finished goods down. Or the things built in space could be mainly things used in space, and the consumption that we receive here on Earth is primarily virtual (i.e. build data centers up in space.)
reply
reply
As I understand it, this is the main purpose of building a space elevator. Hypothetically, that would greatly reduce the costs of getting in and out of Earth's gravity well.
reply
reply
reply
I actually still haven't finished the video, but I think you're missing the point.
Gold is an easy example to use. Let's say there's a feasible prospect of mining an asteroid with more gold than has ever been discovered on Earth (there are many such asteroids).
All of the hurdles you brought up are relevant and many more that neither of us have thought of. However, just the credible prospect of such an increase in the gold supply will reduce gold's monetary premium, because it will not be as strong of a store of value.
That means gold that's currently held for monetary purposes will be sold into the market and used for industrial or ornamental purposes. That would make us wealthier decades before a single ounce of space gold was even mined.
reply
I am not missing the point. I understand that. I am just saying that isn't relevant until it is relevant and we can feasibly bring that gold back for much less that it will be worth once it gets back. Also have to consider even if it was profitable now. Bringing it back to earth and substantially increasing supply, thus reducing it's monetary value means it isn't actually economically feasible to go get it and extract it. If it is not economically feasible why would it be priced in?
reply
Ok, so by "relevant" you meant when we're close enough that prices are starting to be meaningfully impacted. That makes sense, but we also won't know when we get there or if we're there already.
It does seem like you're thinking about it in absolute terms, rather than on the margin. The marginal cost of returning gold to Earth will be a function of the rate of extraction: i.e. more rapid extraction will cost more per ounce. So, if there's any amount that can be mined profitably, then prices will fall to the point where terrestrial demand is expected to meet extraterrestrial supply. (There are a bunch of omitted caveats and addendums in that account, but it's roughly how I'm thinking about it.)
Presumably, this is already factoring into some speculators' decisions and it's definitely factoring into the actions of the private space exploration sector.
It shouldn't matter if it is currently economically feasible. What matters is if people believe that it will be economically feasible in the not too distant future.
Let's say you're planning to start a gold mining operation on Earth and it's somewhere super remote. It's going to take more than a decade to break ground and there will be enormous fixed costs. At prices derived from expected terrestrial gold production, this mine can be profitable over the course of 50 years of operation. Whether or not investment is made in this sort of project may well depend on expectations about asteroid mining.
If projects like that are already being foregone, then we are living in a world where resource allocation is based on future space mining output and we're wealthier because of what those productive resources were used for instead.
reply
reply
Unclear, since we don't know what they would have been. Maybe prices are rising because production hasn't increased as much as it would have in the absence of expectations of future space competition.
It does indicate that people aren't expecting space mining to be economical at crazy low prices, though (at least not in the economically meaningful future).
reply