10,000 quadrillion? what does that even mean?
NASA to explore space rock worth so much money it would DESTROY world economy
THE American space agency is planning to send a spacecraft to a lump of metal in space worth quadrillions of dollars.
The 200km-wide asteroid is currently orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
It is made up of various precious metals such as iron, nickel and gold.
Experts believe the iron alone in the rock would be worth $10,000 quadrillion – enough to cause the world’s economy, worth $73.7 trillion, to promptly collapse altogether.
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the lead scientist on the NASA mission and the director of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, told Canada’s Global News: ““Even if we could grab a big metal piece and drag it back here … what would you do?
“Could you kind of sit on it and hide it and control the global resource — kind of like diamonds are controlled corporately — and protect your market?
“What if you decided you were going to bring it back and you were just going to solve the metal resource problems of humankind for all time?”
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So it goes this way: we have the farmers, botanists, zoologists, etc to take care of problems of starvation etc. Similarly, architects, engineers etc can take care of housing problems. We should, nevertheless, leave some few people, as in astronomers to study and explore the universe.
For sure, I'm not disputing that and you are right, everyone carves out their own niche in life, Astronomers included and we can be grateful to them that they chose that "career move" for our benifit. I just feel its vital for people to be at least aware of the problems on Earth and to do what they can to help alleviate and reduce the suffering of others in the best way they can, and to make that a priority.
Bill Hicks nailed it.
“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”
Of course, they have their focus on all the wrong things, and this is all bullshit, who gives a fück about a lump of metal in space when there are millions of people on Earth without homes, without 2 pennies to rub together, people starving and abused, animals abused and slaughtered.. peoples priorities out of sync, like NASAs priorities for example, the real revolution is loving ourselves, first. Screw the lump of metal in space and concentrate on fixing the problems on Earth!
yes robots and to the caves and domes of mars after gravity i mastered
But now think of mining an asteroid somewhere near jupiter! The rocket do get small and yet it must transport heavy load. When it enters the earth's atmosphere, it must be left for free fall! Such heavy stuff will be like a meteorite. So it doesn't even seem to make technical sense, let alone economic.
I think the objective is for 100 years or so transporting equip to the asteroid mining and trans porting to Mars in small amounts-gravity and protection from solar radiation must be mastered first before any real colonization can occur-and a million other things