Chuck Stewart wrote:

By the time you get to it you'll haveve spent a good portion of it.

By the time you haul back a few thousand tons to Earth and safely
land it you'll have spent most of the rest of it.

By the time you get paid for the gold you brought back word of the
gold's arrival will have flattened the gold market... and you'll be
broke.

Industrial materials in space will stay in space to be used in
space by folks who work in space.

And that's what a gold asteroid would become... gold foil, gold
conductors etc.

The only exception would be materials that are _only_ produced or
procured offworld... that are wanted on Earth.


All interesting analyses...blows my whole idea out of the water. Now,
if and when we go to Mars, we can describe the cost in "solid gold
asteroid" equivalents. I would guess the asteroid would be smaller,
based on MARS being closer than the belt. Maybe I'll look at the
current price of gold and the expected cost to Mars and see what I get
in asteroidal equivalent.