

The Next Great Gold Rush Won't Be Taking Place on Earth - anaxag0ras
http://mic.com/articles/115786/the-next-great-gold-rush-won-t-be-taking-place-on-earth

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JoeAltmaier
Sure there's great opportunity in mining asteroids. There's also great cost.
Its not clear that early ventures will succeed at all; if they do, they may
not profit. There's just so many unknowns. How to find the right asteroid? How
to get there; how to deliver sufficient energy there to do significant mining;
how to get the result back; how to get it on the ground safely; how to do all
this with the nearest spare-parts store not 100 miles away but 300,000,000
miles (and several years) away. Who's going to invest in a project that may
take decades to find out if its going to be feasible?

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einie
We may just have a situation like we do with diamonds, an illusion of
scarcity. Will Gold/Platinum still be valuable when we have near limitless
sources available from space? Are we foolish enough to pay 1200/oz knowing
it's only priced at that level due to a trillionaire throttling supply from
her space refinery?

