
NASA planning mission to an asteroid worth $10,000 quadrillion - vezycash
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2017/01/18/nasa-planning-mission-asteroid-worth-10000-quadrillion/96709250/
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scarmig
Because USA Today is driving me insane with its "relatable" dollar figure
without talking about size or composition...

"16 Psyche is one of the ten most-massive asteroids in the asteroid belt. It
is over 200 kilometers in diameter and contains a little less than 1% of the
mass of the entire asteroid belt. It is thought to be the exposed iron core of
a protoplanet...

Radar observations indicate that Psyche has a fairly pure iron–nickel
composition."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche)

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IndianAstronaut
The purity of it seems like it would allow for easier manufacturing in space.
Thus you can build components, especially the larger bigs, without having to
expensively send them up from the earth's surface.

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danielvf
The staggering supposed worth is beacause of the shear size of the asteroid,
not the preciousness of its contents. Iron ore is only worth about 4 cents per
pound on earth. There's just a lot of it.

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brianwawok
And they forget what would happen to the price of iron if the supply went up
100000x .

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planteen
Yeah exactly. That's why I hate articles like this.

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foxyv
NASA sending probe to Earth, a planet that is worth roughly (All of the money
ever). They plan to exploit it for resources that will be used, in part, for
space exploration.

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aniijbod
You're on a trajectory beyond a 64 bit number of dollars there.

