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posted by janrinok on Tuesday July 21 2015, @01:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the waving-money-goodbye dept.

Asteroid UW-158 is set to wizz past Earth today, carrying an estimated five trillion dollars in platinum.

Spectroscopic analysis has revealed the composition of the asteroid, and made it a prime target for future asteroid-mining missions. It is approximately 452 metres by 1,011 metres in size. If the analysis is correct, it could be carrying an astonishing 90 million tons of platinum. It will swing past Earth at a distance of 2.4 million km, and will not be visible to the naked eye.

Paging Bruce Willis...


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by nyder on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:32AM

    by nyder (4525) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:32AM (#211716)

    Seems to me that all the trillions we've spent on the middle east "wars" could of been a better investment if we had devoted the money to space. If we spent the last 2 decades developing a way to capture and then mine said asteroid, not only would this one possible pay back the investment, it paves the way to more and more.

    But i guess wasting our resources on stuff that we can't replace here on earth is okay, not like we want our grandchildren to have decent lives.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:39AM (#211718)

    So in the future world we will mine hydrocarbons from the moons of Saturn and take all the extra CO2 from Earth to make an Atmosphere on Mars! Now where do we get extra O2 from?

    Nuke Rockets will save the world!

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:21AM (#211801)
      solar energy + raw materials from asteroids -> more solar panels
      solar energy + solar panels + CO2 => O2 + C
      solar energy + solar panels + 2 x H2O (from some asteroids) => O2 + 2 x H2.

      But trying to do any of that on Mars would be stupid. It's a gravity well with the wrong atmosphere, wrong pressure, wrong climate.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:16AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:16AM (#211829)

        But it was Mars in Total Recall so it has to be Mars!

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:50AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:50AM (#211725) Homepage Journal

    While space does to there is an arms factory and military base in most states.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:13AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:13AM (#211826) Journal
      Most of the stuff NASA buys is provided by the same companies that the DoD buys from. The reason that it doesn't get as much support from campaign contributions is the volume: the military buys a lot more stuff. I don't think that there'd be much objection to transferring military funding to space, you'd still be spending a lot of money with the military industrial complex.
      --
      sudo mod me up