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from the take-two-coins-and-two-barley-cakes dept.
Nasa is prepping a mission to the asteroid Psyche (formally '16 Psyche') to be launched in 2022. Psyche is an especially interesting asteroid due to it's unique composition.
The asteroid belt is composed of three types of asteroid: C-type (carbonaceous, ~75 percent of all asteroids), S-type (silicate-rich, ~17 percent of asteroids) and M-type (metal-rich), which are roughly 10 percent of the total population ... 16 Psyche is an M-type asteroid made of iron-nickel. What makes it unusual is that it's believed to be the now-exposed core of a protoplanet. It's also estimated to be worth $10,000 quadrillion dollars
Psyche presents unique opportunities:
First, it's the only known 'iron world' in the solar system. Second, it's likely the closest we will ever come to examining the core of an actual planet.
The spacecraft that will head to Psyche is in the preliminary design stages. According to Jim Bell, the deputy principal investigator of the Psyche mission:
"We are trying to prepare for any eventuality, no matter what it's like. Our instruments will make interesting measurements, observations and discoveries that will allow us to put the history of that object back together."
The spacecraft will use a gravity assist from Mars in 2023 and arrive at Psyche in 2026. It is hoped that examining Psyche will provide us with much more information about early protoplanets and planetary formation.
No word if the asteroid Cupid will be nearby when the spacecraft and asteroid rendezvous.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:21AM (2 children)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=26810&page=1&cid=713558#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Using asteroid materials to build things in space that don't come back to Earth might be the killer app.
But if you want to bring things to the surface of Earth, you could try getting gold, platinum, etc. only and leaving the iron where it is. Then do a soft landing on Earth with BFR or other propelled lander. It seems like it could actually be worth it if the fully reusable launcher is cheap enough, but finding and collecting X tons of pure gold or other element won't be easy.
If the heat shielded asteroid idea works, it would be pretty incredible. You could just cut up chunks of asteroid, smash them into a desert at relatively low speed, and mine them in place. It sounds like it could be cheaper than rocket landings. Hopefully something does not go wrong with the heat shield.
$10,000 quadrillion and similar estimates are laughable, but when companies get serious about asteroid mining, they will have to produce some real numbers on how much money they expect to make per load, unless they are just trying to fleece investors.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:03AM (1 child)
Literally!
As a tungsten substitute, iron will be good enough: with cheaper iron and less manufacturing costs, 3x longer rods form God [wikipedia.org] is not a problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:09AM
Space Force announces asteroid mining mission (to wipe out China)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]