Metro
NASA scientists are in the ‘home stretch’ to blast off to a $10,000 quadrillion (£7,700 quadrillion) asteroid later this year.
Engineers and technicians at Cape Canaveral are preparing the Psyche spacecraft for liftoff, which is slated for October 5.
The mission aims to study a space rock that could be worth more than the entire global economy.
The craft will journey to the unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter some 310,410,000 miles from Earth.
The rock, named 16 Psyche, potentially has a core of iron, nickel and gold worth $10,000 quadrillion. More
By the time we figure out how to extract the wealth from this rock it’ll probably just about pay off the national debt. – Dr. Tar
The people who think the precious-metal content of 16 Psyche would “pay off the national debt” should look into what happened to the economy of Spain when it imported huge amounts of gold from the New World in the 17th century.
don’t worry congress already has it spent.
Annnnnnddddd it’s gone!
BIG FOOKIN’ DEAL, O’Biden would just give it to the COMMCHINKS anyway!
And these “scientists” know 16 Psyche’s value……how?
I could keep up with any of you concerning specific impulse, Hohmann transfer orbital insertion, deep space power systems, ion engines. I call BS on this. Only getting there with any payload is crazy hard. You are going “Uphill”. You need to change your ecliptic orbit, and then rendezvous in a higher orbit, non-circular. All that takes crazy fuel, and time. Totally forget bringing any humans on this sort of trip.
Now I will admit that IF you had a total robot factory up on this asteroid, getting the refined “stuff” back is going downhill. And if you just crash land the lump of metal into the sea, you wont waste too much fuel slowing it down. Still requires non-trivial juice to change orbits though. Pity the humans living here during this phase. Untold tons of solid metal screaming down at 30,000 mph or more; straight at the Earth.
The whole idea is retarded.
Hunter will snort any rock that he comes across so keep it away from him.
Potentially.
Just like Biden has NO potential, but he got 81 quadrillion votes.
Knowing humans, they will go up there and change the orbit of the thing; thereby turning it into a SMOD.
Mining the asteroid is for rockhounds, the real money will be selling futures or some other derivative on the potential riches to be found on it. Imagine the trading in space mining futures on the Chicago Board of Trade and the killing Hillary Clinton could make on the futures market.
Dust off and nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure!
Twilight Zone Gold Bars episode – https://youtu.be/pcLRPcMneCI
It makes the Moon and Mars all that much more important. The Chinese are intent on making the Moon theirs and they understand that possession is 9/10s of the law.
Now, it could take decades or more to get a space economy going but unless we nuke or scare ourselves back to the stone age, it is likely to happen. A new stone age seems more likely.
“By the time we figure out how to extract the wealth from this rock it’ll probably just about pay off the national debt. – Dr. Tar”
The cost to figure that out would pay off the national debt.
AC Parker, how I wish to believe we can create a space based economy. A hard look at the real situation is more bleak.
1st: fuels. Yikes, you realize the Elon Musk modern rocket uses Kerosene? The very best rocket ever tested, by the Russians, uses Methane fuel. Stone age for deep space. Humans truly require a science fiction leap in tech. Real fusion power using helium or lithium. anti-matter? space warp? zero-point stuff?
Then the insanity of human long term life support. Every problem: high rad, hard vac, micrometeorite environment. Perfect recycling; or else crazy supply issue.
And the total fragility of such a system.
60 years ago Heinlein laid it out. Space stations, lunar base, inhabit Ganymede. Water blanket shielding. And yes, he had to gloss over many of the deeper troubles.
While I like Musk, I do not understand his “move to Mars” mission. Mars is an utter crap hole with NO air and no water and barely any sunshine. No matter what falsities we are told by Nasa and Elon, humans are not going to be living there for a long time.
What we could possibly achieve:
Nice big low orbit space station. A real one, not the junk pile they pretend to have now.
An actual space shuttle. It was basically a good idea. Blast off with rockets, fly back on wings. Still a great idea. Just make a GOOD one with modern tech.
Get all that in place, then think about the Moon. The best place for human occupation is the Lunar south pole. There is a bunch of good reasons the Chinese are going there next.
This ain’t rocket science folks. It’s got an iron core. Build a big magnet say in Fort Knox and it will come right to you. Saves on shipping and handling fees.
“And these “scientists” know 16 Psyche’s value……how?”
Experts on Tik Tok.
“Build a big magnet”
I would think DC sucks enough to pull it in, just need to direct it.
And it only cost $10,001 quadrillion to get it, while everybody goes back to washing clothes in the creek.
I am making $10,000 quadrillion per nanosecond working in my mind …
Whatever
Pay off the national debt? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaa! They will never pay off the debt as long as the DEMONcRATS are in charge.
The irony is if they can mine the ore it will collapse the world’s economy.