I have been waiting for this since I first heard about asteroid mining. Its going to wreck precious metal prices in a way that I don't think we've ever seen before. To put things in perspective, with 90 million tons of platinum in this asteroid, we could multiply the current total production of platinum by 1000x, and still mine this asteroid for the next several centuries.
I have almost no question that the commercial sector will be harnessing asteroids within the next 50 years, barring a catastrophic global meltdown. This one asteroid has, apparently, a low end estimated value of $300 billion. We could fund all of NASA for something like 15 years just on the ability to capture and mine a single asteroid. Even better: just being able to claim this asteroid as an asset would put you in the top 20 most asset rich corporations in the Fortune 500.
I fully believe asteroid mining will get us off Earth before I die. With so much potential money in it, I don't see how it doesn't.
I have been waiting for this since I first heard about asteroid mining. Its going to wreck precious metal prices in a way that I don't think we've ever seen before. To put things in perspective, with 90 million tons of platinum in this asteroid, we could multiply the current total production of platinum by 1000x, and still mine this asteroid for the next several centuries.
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