Mining Asteroids - What is it going to do to the gold market.

[DieselScout]

From Wiki, among other articles on Asteroid mining

In fact, all the gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium, and tungsten mined from the Earth's crust, and that are essential for economic and technological progress, came originally from the rain of asteroids that hit the Earth after the crust cooled.

Some who want to mine Asteroids have said some passing Earth have more Platinum in them, then has been mined in all of the history of Earth. Others have large quantities of Gold. People have told me Gold is the most stable investment as there is only a finite amount on the planet. In 15 years, on good Asteroid could turn that all on it's ear, is anyone heavily invested in Gold worried?

Just curious.

Billionaires could be mining Asteroids in 10 years
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MIT Simple case study $2.6 billion dollar invest in capturing a 30 meter long 500 ton asteroid which could yield $30-50 billion in return. However their timeline puts it at 2035-2045 before we'd be full time asteroid miners.

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[CharonPDX]

Yeah, it's going to be more than 15-20 years before there is enough return on investment to affect the market in any way.

And gold isn't where asteroid mining would make money - gold has some, but few, industrial uses. It is the rarer but commonly used industrially metals like palladium, platinum and the more common nickel that will make the big difference.

Also, if you're "prepping", even valuable metals aren't that great an investment - you want to stock actual *TRADE* goods. If something truly does happen that causes a "SHTF" scenario, I'm not going to give one lick for gold. Oh, I'll happily "pay" with gold to suckers who take it early on, but accepting gold for goods isn't going to feed my family.

Yeah, after things settle down, gold might become a trade commodity, but even then I doubt it - too many people will have gold and nothing else of value, which would flood the market anyway.

 

[DieselScout]

Yeah, it's going to be more than 15-20 years before there is enough return on investment to affect the market in any way.

And gold isn't where asteroid mining would make money - gold has some, but few, industrial uses. It is the rarer but commonly used industrially metals like palladium, platinum and the more common nickel that will make the big difference.

Also, if you're "prepping", even valuable metals aren't that great an investment - you want to stock actual *TRADE* goods. If something truly does happen that causes a "SHTF" scenario, I'm not going to give one lick for gold. Oh, I'll happily "pay" with gold to suckers who take it early on, but accepting gold for goods isn't going to feed my family.

Yeah, after things settle down, gold might become a trade commodity, but even then I doubt it - too many people will have gold and nothing else of value, which would flood the market anyway.

I fully agree with you, I have never thought much of hoarding gold. However many people do, just wondering how it will effect their plans.

 

[EZLivin]

This reminds me of my father's old Popular Mechanics magazines stacked up in his workshops - the one's with drawings of flying cars. Still waiting for them to hit the dealer floors.

We will be aggressively mining the ocean floor long before anyone successfully comes up with a way to make asteroid mining/recovery cost-effective. My guess is technology is going to be increasingly focused on keeping asteroids away rather than bringing them back. Sure, it will happen one day, but on a scale of 1-10 I would have a hard time even rating it as a lowly "1" as far as current investment decisions are concerned. I'm not going to sell my rare-earth or precious metals explorers based on what might (or might not) happen 20+ years from now.

 

[coop44]

wow, there is only a finite amount? what is there an infinite amount of, stupid? The economics of asteroid mining don't work, and won't work for a very long time, if ever.

 

[CharonPDX]

From what I've read about the asteroid mining plans, they certainly think it will be profitable - but it will take a large outlay to do, and a long timeframe. They may be ready to start in 15-20 years, but won't see return on investment for another 20.

 

[andreys21]

Investing in gold is the worst investment. Gold is a commodity, which means the price is driven by supply and demand. JUST LIKE AMMO! If you have any gold right now, sell it and buy real estate, ammo, livestock or anything. When dollar collapses and the fecal matter strikes the rotary device, your gold wont do you any good. You can't eat it, it just looks pretty. Ammo and food is going to be worth more than your coins.

 

[EZLivin]

Investing in gold is the worst investment. .

LOL.

Current return since metals bull market began in 2001:

Gold: + 525%
Silver: + 603%
CEF: + 575%
HUI: + 847%

Maybe your calculator doesn't work too well down in the bunker?

 

[DieselScout]

wow, there is only a finite amount? what is there an infinite amount of, stupid? The economics of asteroid mining don't work, and won't work for a very long time, if ever.

Apparently there is an infinite amount of bubblegums! Maybe I should have said extremely finite? What would have been a better term? According to MIT, the economics of mining asteroids does work. According to quite a few billionaires, the economics are so good they are sinking fortunes into it.

 

[Kevinkris]

mining from asteroids will have no serious affect on any metal markets because it would cost so much to do it, there would be no profit. on another note, its just not going to happen for a long time.

 

[coop44]

Apparently there is an infinite amount of bubblegums! Maybe I should have said extremely finite? What would have been a better term? According to MIT, the economics of mining asteroids does work. According to quite a few billionaires, the economics are so good they are sinking fortunes into it.

having a degree doesn't mean they are smart, and having money doesn't either.

 

[AMProducts]

As some have already said, there are much more valuable things on asteroids besides gold. helium 3 and other isotopes are far far more valuable than gold. Hell, tritium costs about $30K/gram what's gold? $1600/oz... that's CHEAP by comparison, tritium is about 500x more valuable on average.

 

[DieselScout]

having a degree doesn't mean they are smart, and having money doesn't either.

It doesn't mean they are not smart.

Elon Musk, the owner of Space X, is already making trips to the international space station, has just demonstrated his reusable Space vehicle and feels the next step is Asteroid mining. So you cannot say he, or his employees are not smart, they've already have the capability to get there, and come back. They take loads to the space station, so they have the ability to haul cargo with a reusable space ship, so half the technology exists and has come to exist in a relatively short period of time. Look at the low technology it took to get us to the moon, it can be done, and according to the MIT paper I linked it can be done with a 10 to 20 times profit. Even at a 5 or 2 times profit it's still worth doing. And once it get done the technology is only going to get cheaper.

 

[coop44]

OK for the sake of arguement lets say you overcome all obsticles and spend the money to bring back 1 ton, 2000 pounds of gold, 32,000 ounces, at 1500 dollars an ounce that would be 72 billion dollars.

how many hundreds of billions do you think it would cost to get it?

it isn't like you filed a claim, where the initial investment would be in access (i.e. roads, equipment, housing) once paid for it is used over and over.

Every time you go into space to mine, you only have a finite amount of time, supplies, manpower, which all will run out very quickly causing a return. In a nutshell the more you want, the more you will have to take with you, increasing costs. All of the asteroid mining suggestions rely on as yet to be found or proven technology.

 

[coop44]

It doesn't mean they are not smart.

Elon Musk, the owner of Space X, is already making trips to the international space station, has just demonstrated his reusable Space vehicle and feels the next step is Asteroid mining. So you cannot say he, or his employees are not smart, they've already have the capability to get there, and come back. They take loads to the space station, so they have the ability to haul cargo with a reusable space ship, so half the technology exists and has come to exist in a relatively short period of time. Look at the low technology it took to get us to the moon, it can be done, and according to the MIT paper I linked it can be done with a 10 to 20 times profit. Even at a 5 or 2 times profit it's still worth doing. And once it get done the technology is only going to get cheaper.

Making it to LEO, low earth orbit, is like walking out your front door, going to an asteroid is like walking to new mexico. Like most people you have no concept of the distances involved.

 

[DieselScout]

OK for the sake of arguement lets say you overcome all obsticles and spend the money to bring back 1 ton, 2000 pounds of gold, 32,000 ounces, at 1500 dollars an ounce that would be 72 billion dollars.

how many hundreds of billions do you think it would cost to get it?

it isn't like you filed a claim, where the initial investment would be in access (i.e. roads, equipment, housing) once paid for it is used over and over.

Every time you go into space to mine, you only have a finite amount of time, supplies, manpower, which all will run out very quickly causing a return. In a nutshell the more you want, the more you will have to take with you, increasing costs. All of the asteroid mining suggestions rely on as yet to be found or proven technology.

From my initial post and the MIT KISS Study

According to the KISS study, the cost for a future mission to identify and return a 500 ton asteroid to low earth orbit is ~$2.6 billion USD....

So, ever if your cost over run 1000% that is only 26 billion, and you'd still net 46 billion dollars. Even at 2000% you'd still net 20 billion.

All I am wondering is if people who are invested in gold, what do they think about this? Is it something they are keeping an eye on, did they even know about it or how close (relatively) the technology is? Would it ruin the market? Would asteroid gold be worth more then terrestrial gold and have a separate market?


EDIT: Apparently I am not reading my own quoted research, the 2.6 billion is just for getting the Asteroid here and has no cost estimate for processing. However, with such a high profit margin I'd imagine it would still be profitable, however I have no means to back that up and I can't find any cost estimates for an in-orbit processing center. Another question.....who want's to be an Asteroid miner?

 

[coop44]

hey AMP tritium is man made not mined

 

[coop44]

and of course the metals market would immediately go into a nose dive

 

[coop44]

According to the KISS study, the cost for a future mission to identify and return a 500 ton asteroid to low earth orbit is ~$2.6 billion USD, ignoring the costs to develop the infrastructure necessary to process the materials in the asteroid ("Asteroid usage", 2012).

yep any thing is feasable if you leave out all the costs


the true advantage would be to, not bring it back to earth but to use the metals to expand our reach into space. develop the infrastructure in space and use it there, "leapfrogging " our way to the reaches of our solar system. which is about as far as we can feasably go (at least for the next few hundred years)

personally I would like to see more research into the Higgs Boson particle, that which gives mass to everything in theory.If that mystery can be cracked, cheap space travel, artificial gravity, and shielding to withstand interstellar speeds can be achieved.


then this arguement would be moot

 

[DieselScout]

Making it to LEO, low earth orbit, is like walking out your front door, going to an asteroid is like walking to new mexico. Like most people you have no concept of the distances involved.

I assure you I have a grasp of the distances involved. I am not most people.