Y'know, something I've wondered--in light of all the "I have XYZ precious metal from XXX deep fissure/vein/mineralization at insanity/ton"--what is the etiology of gold nuggets? Sure, they wear out of the face of exposed deposits, but where did the mostly pure gold come from? Gold (and the PGMs) are siderophilic, so what type of geological enrichment processes have to occur before you end up getting chunks of darn near pure gold?Here's a very strong clue that space mining is likely a massive pipe dream .....
"The reported gold contents of meteorites range from 0.0003 to 8.74 parts per million" ...... source; United States Geological Survey .....
so what type of geological enrichment processes have to occur before you end up getting chunks of darn near pure gold?
Sounds like new some elements floating around out there in outer space ..... dude from the link/article calls these undiscovered elements; "unobtainium"Also, what's the deal with these meteorites that have these preposterous densities? Bad math?
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-periodic-table-superheavy-elements-ultradense.html
Perfect example for Dave’s popular saying.That's way above my level of expertise.
Then you read a post from Lou, and you realize how much you still don't know.
Dave
You know space assay are not like other assays.https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/9378480/giant-golden-asteroid-psyche-61-billionaire-nasa-2022/
Hmmm - really - so was this determined by proper random sampling & fire assays --- or - by XRF readout of another rock
Kurt
Mining ANYTHING in space and returning large amounts of it to Earth is currently a pipe dream anyway. The sheer cost of setting up a mining operation on an asteroid is nearly incalculable, since you'd need to bring ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING into space required for the operation. We're talking hundreds of billions worth of rocket trips. That's quite an offset to the potential gains, not even addressing how you get large quantities of material down to Earth without it falling as a meteor! Pure gold might be worthwhile, given its value per ton, but even then you'd need a capsule with a landing chute large enough to decelerate the mass of gold. A ton of gold is worth $58 million at current prices... the reentry vehicle costs required to get it down at current reentry prices per kg would be.... $40 million. Sending all the materials into space costs $20 million per ton, currently. So, say you need 10 tons of materials to get the mining operation up and running on the asteroid... that's $200 million JUST TO START MINING. So, if you're only making $18 million per ton of gold produced, it'd take 11 tons of gold successfully landed on Earth JUST TO START TURNING A PROFIT, and that assumes NOTHING EVER GOES WRONG WITH ANYTHING in the entire process.
Basically, anything mined in space is going to STAY in space and be used for constructing space infrastructure. Other metals will be far more important than gold for that venture.
Wasn't it all just one really big fusion followed by a really big cupellation?Y'know, something I've wondered--in light of all the "I have XYZ precious metal from XXX deep fissure/vein/mineralization at insanity/ton"--what is the etiology of gold nuggets? Sure, they wear out of the face of exposed deposits, but where did the mostly pure gold come from? Gold (and the PGMs) are siderophilic, so what type of geological enrichment processes have to occur before you end up getting chunks of darn near pure gold?
Also, what's the deal with these meteorites that have these preposterous densities? Bad math?
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-periodic-table-superheavy-elements-ultradense.html
My numbers only included the costs of transport. That's saying NOTHING about the cost of the equipment and actual mining costs. Plus the TIME it will take move so much material around in space over tens to hundreds of millions of miles.So you aren't wrong...but getting it back to the surface of the earth isn't as impossible as it may seem. When you don't have pesky people aboard a vessel, it doesn't need to be quite as soft of a ride. Keeping our blood circulating from the heart to the brain is the limiting factor right now.
From a technological standpoint, all we have worked on is getting the cargo there....not returning anything to earth except the people, data and light scientific instruments.
Mars almost certainly has its own metal deposits. And since its interior has cooled so much since it's such a small planet, we can drill much deeper into the crust without the issue.There is enough gold in the Earth to make everyone billionaires, if it could be found and extracted at low cost or free.
The metals in asteroids are probably not economical to mine for use on the Earth or possibly even the Moon. They might be useful if we make a massive colonization effort on Mars.
I think its a highly realistic scenario that the gold standard comes back. The only thing needed is a distrust to currency and a wish for a stable resource based money system. Inflation is theft. Nothing else. When people understand this something will happened. In a gold based economy your gold gets more valuable by the time due to DEFLATION and there is not any major need to put it in the bank. Well, the banks hate this scenario and therefor oppose it.Is the world quietly preparing to go back onto a global Gold standard of some type? ..... while basically unimaginable even just a few years ago, with the recent plunge in the value of US Treasury bonds, a return to some type of global Gold standard may not be so far fetched ......
https://gata.org/node/22910
One planet that escapes attention is Mercury. It has a HUGE core of metal relative to its total size, almost no crust, a drastic day-night transition temperature that might make large heat engines a viable source of power, and permanently-dark polar craters with confirmed water ice deposits.
It would be a very valuable resource planet for massive space construction. Enough metal in its interior for a Dyson Sphere!
The more updated ideas regarding Dyson spheres is that they wouldn't be solid shells, but more of a lattice structure with flexibility. That would tremendously decrease the amount of materials required, and negate the need to deal with the enormous heat and radiation build up inside if it was a sealed structure.... and that triggered the physicist in me.
The mass of Mercury is 3,30E+23 kg with roughly 70% metal and the rest silicates. We assume that it is in the form of a nickel - iron alloy and has a density about 8000 kg per cubic meter. This gives us about 2,9E+19 m3 of metal. If we spread it out as a Dyson sphere at the orbit of Mercury (5,75e+10 m mean) with an area of 4,15e+22 m2 we get a metal shell of 0,7 mm. If we build our shell at the orbit of the Earth then the shell would end up about 0,2 mm thick. That's just twice the thickness of an aluminium can.
I believe that the possibility of building a Dyson sphere from the material contained in the solar system is about as probably as one of the Euro zone countries going back to a gold standard backed currency before world war three begins.
For anyone that think I'm wrong, I have a 50 gram gold bar that I would trade for Euro, dollar or Swedish kronor at spot price. Offer valid until I move to a Dyson sphere.
Ref : Mercury (planet) - Wikipedia
Göran
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