[meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit

[MexicoDoug]

Hello Sterling,

Well, since the purpose of this is to mine an asteroid, it seems pretty 
foolish to waste all that effort on a 10 meter rock which you won't 
allow to be an iron.

IT HAS TO BE AN IRON unless you want to waste money.  Or do you want to 
mine antimony (element = Sb).  That would be very successfully at 
mining Antimoney (element = $$$ouch$$$) !!!

The problem is that most of the trace elements worth mining are 
siderophiles.  So if you are going to mine silaceous, or most stony 
meteorites, I'd suggest going to a beach on earth (with a K-T 
outcropping if you insist ;-)  with a tonka dump truck as the initial 
probe...

Even at the 1 ppm level (a gross exaggeration for a stony meteorite), 
there is 1,200 grams of gold in your 1,200 ton 10 meter diameter 
"spherical" asteroid.  Now I know gold is getting expensive, but let's 
keep our feet on terra firma.  If you are going to mine anything, it 
needs to be worth it.  Considering that "mining" such a small body is 
an expensive proposition (how do you think it would be smelted in 
orbit), they'd be better off just bringing back the 1,200 grams of raw 
asteroid and selling it to scientists and collectors.  So, no matter 
how you cut up this "pie in the sky" in a spreadsheet, it ain't workin'

Kindest wishes
Doug


-----Original Message-----
From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
To: Bernd V. Pauli <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>; 
meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 7:01 pm
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit


Hi, Bernd, List, 
 
A mere 10-meter spherical asteroid? (To a physicist, 
everything is spherical at the first approximation...) 
That's 523.6 cu. meters. At a rock density of 2 to 3 
metric tons per cu. meter, that's somewhere between 
1047.2 and 1570.8 metric tons. 
 
As a disaster, it's on a par with dropping a grand piano 
on a cartoon coyote. It would be a slow approach and 
MIGHT drop 10 kilos of meteorites, but probably not 
unless it grazed the atmosphere at the correct angle. 
However, a 10-meter asteroid is a tiny playground. 
 
What if it were a 100-meter asteroid, ten times bigger, 
and lots of surface (and about 1,000,000 tons). If you 
accidentally dropped that object on the Earth, you'd 
have a 250-meter crater and 0.2 MegaTon blast. 
 
Too big to play with. 
 
A 33-meter asteroid? Airbursts at 14 kilometers and 
splatters a lot of fast fragments, but no craters. From 
this I conclude that the 10-meter asteroid grab is a 
Modest Proposal. 
 
Unless, of course, it's an iron... 
 
Sterling K. Webb 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--- 
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bernd V. Pauli" 
<bernd.pauli at paulinet.de> 
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> 
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 4:51 PM 
Subject: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit 
 
> "Interesting idea. What could possibly go wrong?" 
> 
> What if the nudge is a little bit too strong? 
> What if the Moon interferes? 
> 
> What if this NEO is thus sent hurtling toward planet Earth? 
> 
> - utter devestation 
> - millions of people killed 
> - wildfires 
> - tsunamis 
> - earthquakes 
> - tons and tons of material ejected into the atmosphere 
> - etc., etc. 
> 
> Bernd 
> 
> 
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