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posted by martyb on Friday January 20 2017, @02:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the iron-is-a-precious-metal? dept.

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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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @01:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @01:25PM (#456512)

    Come on, the market price would collapse long before that much iron could be sold.

    That's just a sign that market price is an artifact of a broken system. Iron has intrinsic value, being a pretty good material to construct things out of.

  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday January 20 2017, @11:56PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday January 20 2017, @11:56PM (#456779) Journal

    Exactly. In this situation market collapse == iron is so abundant that everyone can have as much as they need / want. All the useful / beautiful / enjoyable things that can be made from iron would be reduced to cost or labour (robots anyone) plus cost of energy (OK, this one isn't so easy, but it's not unsolvable). And of course it's not just iron - there are other metals in that rock too.

    Post-scarcity utopia anyone?