Will it ever be economically feasible to colonize the solar system?

[CountDeMoney]

Somebody needs to bury a drill bit in Timmay's head and drive him into the pavement, see how deep he can go.

[Neil]

So is phase 2 finding a way to avoid the enormous fines and prison sentences that would result from actually mining an asteroid?

Phase 2 is sending probes for observation and sample return missions from asteroids found promising by spectral analysis with the aforementioned telescopes.

Maybe they should concentrate on finding a business model that would allow them to profit before they do all this preliminary work?

[HVC]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

[jimmy olsen]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

[Zanza]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

[HVC]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

And if there's so much of it either they'd devalue the commodity, or scale back production and thus reduce profits. At this point in time there's no reason to do it. Economically anyway.

[Ed Anger]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

Rigelian slave girls.

[Tamas]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

And if there's so much of it either they'd devalue the commodity, or scale back production and thus reduce profits. At this point in time there's no reason to do it. Economically anyway.

Mass production and high availability of certain products and resources did not seem to stop highly profitable industries. Otherwise we would not have had an industrial revolution.

[HVC]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

And if there's so much of it either they'd devalue the commodity, or scale back production and thus reduce profits. At this point in time there's no reason to do it. Economically anyway.

Mass production and high availability of certain products and resources did not seem to stop highly profitable industries. Otherwise we would not have had an industrial revolution.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be profitable. I'm saying, as resources stand now it's more profitable on earth. I'm also contending that to make someone the richest man in history you have to bring down a lot of the stuff which will devalue it.

[Tamas]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

And if there's so much of it either they'd devalue the commodity, or scale back production and thus reduce profits. At this point in time there's no reason to do it. Economically anyway.

Mass production and high availability of certain products and resources did not seem to stop highly profitable industries. Otherwise we would not have had an industrial revolution.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be profitable. I'm saying, as resources stand now it's more profitable on earth. I'm also contending that to make someone the richest man in history you have to bring down a lot of the stuff which will devalue it.

their ambition, AFAIK, is to make platinum and similar stuff very commonly used, everyday, cheap resources. Whether THEY SPECIFICALLY will succeed or not is up to debate of course, but unless we manage a nucular WW3, somebody will.

[Strix]

Ok, two thoughts on the subject...

1) We went from riding in horse drawn wagons and carriages to riding rockets to the Moon in less than a 100 years, so it's not improbably we go from riding rockets to the Moon to riding ships to Pluto (fuck you scientists, it is a planet).

2) We should take a page from history and start sending out penal colonies to space as soon as possible. The money saved by not having to care for felons in prison would probably cover a lot of the cost of colonizing.

[Neil]

2) We should take a page from history and start sending out penal colonies to space as soon as possible. The money saved by not having to care for felons in prison would probably cover a lot of the cost of colonizing.

Except you're not saving money, because launching people into space is far, far more expensive than keeping them in prison.

[Neil]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

You keep saying that, but that's not really true.  Whoever does it will be fined, and might spend some time in prison.

[Grey Fox]

It'll probably take more then 10 years to get those phases done (if at all). Why do all that when you can get an operational mine up and running in northern Canada (for example) in a fraction of that time at a much greater margin. We still have plenty of deposits down here.

Whoever succeeds in mining the asteroids will become richer than Rockefeller (the richest man ever) and revolutionize the world economy. There's no comparison.

I don't know, I think the Rothschild were richer at some point.

[Razgovory]

Why would he become richer than Rockefeller? What's out there that is so valuable?

And if there's so much of it either they'd devalue the commodity, or scale back production and thus reduce profits. At this point in time there's no reason to do it. Economically anyway.

Mass production and high availability of certain products and resources did not seem to stop highly profitable industries. Otherwise we would not have had an industrial revolution.

Yeah, but the smart ones didn't flood the market.  US Steel became rich by producing much more steel then anyone had done before, but they did it over the course of decades.  They didn't just show up one day with 100 million tons of steel.