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NASA wants to uncover the mystery behind the asteroid “16 Psyche.” that may contain a priceless treasure trove of minerals. “We’ve been to all the different planets, we’ve been to other asteroids. But we’ve never visited a body that has been made of entirely metal,” said Carol Polanskey, project scientist for the Psyche mission. Now NASA, led by researchers at Arizona State University, plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to orbit 16 Psyche – an asteroid roughly the size of Massachusetts, made of iron and other precious metals. The mission’s leader estimates that the iron alone on today’s market would be worth $10,000 quadrillion.
Previously: NASA Selects Two Missions to Visit Asteroids
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NASA Asteroid Mission -- Metals "Worth" Ten Thousand Quadrillion Dollars
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It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Friday January 20 2017, @02:26AM
It's literally the same discipline. Celestial mechanics. Ideally, you would do both by once by corralling potential asteroid threats into orbit around the Moon or Ceres or some place, and then exploit them decades later when it becomes feasible to do so.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Friday January 20 2017, @05:13AM
Because Ceres is so easy to reach?
Exploit them to do what? Build Toyotas?
You can't land that much weight on Earth without severe consequences.
So we will have to use it all in space somewhere. How about out by Ceres, since its so easy to get to...
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 20 2017, @09:13AM
Did you know that it would take less energy to land on and return from Phobos than the Moon?
Gravity matters more than distance, especially if the asteroid redirection is unmanned and you have plenty of years to do little orbital adjustments with ion engines to get it just right. Putting something around Mars, Ceres, or Phobos could be training for doing it right at the Moon or Earth, where a mistake could be bad.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @07:20AM
It's literally the same discipline.
More than that, it's literally the first half of the same mission. Capturing an asteroid requires landing on it, applying thrust on the correct direction until it's trajectory is within Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, slowing it down bellow escape velocity once it's actually there and finally positioning it in the correct orbit or in an aerobreaking suborbital trajectory depending on whether you want to utilize it in orbit or on the surface. Deflection only requires landing on it and applying thrust in any direction perpendicular to the prograde vector (that is, the current direction of movement) and would normally take considerably less fuel than aiming it for a capture.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 20 2017, @05:12PM
If you put an asteroid into an orbit that can be reached, and it has a lot of valuable treasure on it, then there suddenly becomes an incentive to MAKE it feasible to harvest.
Even if all that metal cannot be landed on Earth, it could be used for space stations and spacecraft. Again, the value of the materials, already in space, and somewhat accessible, will accelerate the development of technologies to exploit it.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @11:19PM
SHINY SHINY SHINY
Can haz metlz cheep?