Chuck Stewart wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 19:50:07 +0000, stmx3 wrote:


Hop David wrote:


Find a solid gold asteroid...then you'll have the killer app. Space
transportation would leap a century into the future.

Chuck, please be more careful with your attributions. stmx3 proposed the
gold asteroid, not I (Hop David).



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.



I agree with most of the above but believe there's another possibility.
If an accessible, volatile rich asteroid is found, delta V might become
much cheaper. The asteroid's water and fuel could be exported to a depot
in earth orbit. Then it would be much cheaper to excape LEO. It would
also become much less expensive to export stuff to earth from various
locations.

I happen to believe "The Killer App" will be an extinct comet (Nereus or
1979 VA? Maybe even Deimos - it possibly has interior volatiles and is
easier to export from than Mars). Then when delta v is much cheaper,
metal rich asteroids will also become Killer Apps.

Hop
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html