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NASA Asteroid Mission -- Metals "Worth" Ten Thousand Quadrillion Dollars

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

randomerr writes:

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: 2) by captain_nifty on Friday January 20 2017, @03:47PM

    by captain_nifty (4252) on Friday January 20 2017, @03:47PM (#456569)

    We'd likely use silver wire for most things, it is one of the best conductors, better than copper. Gold is also a good conductor, better than aluminum but worse than copper.

    Gold has the downside of being a relatively soft metal, if lined in plumbing it would wear off via erosion fairly quickly. But we might use a lot more gold alloys. Really if you get into post scarcity gold, silver, and diamonds other precious materials have some great design properties, diamonds have high thermal conductivity making them great for heat exchangers. One thing to look at is todays increasing use of Sapphire as a clear screen material, we can make them artificially lowering the price, but today we make small windows out of jewels!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @05:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @05:28AM (#456864)

    Gold is also a good conductor, better than aluminum but worse than copper.

    Well, it's hard to compare aluminum and copper or gold directly like that. Gold and copper beat aluminum for the same thickness, but aluminum is much less dense so it is a better conductor (even better than copper) for the same mass.

    Gold is a very dense metal (about twice as dense as lead) so if you care about mass you probably would not use much of it.