this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Not really. Yes, if you could extract all the precious metals from that asteroid, refine and purify them, teleport them to Earth, and then sell all of it at their current prices, you would be a quintillionaire, but that isn't a realistic scenario. Even if asteroid mining becomes profitable, there isn't a quintillion-dollar market for precious metals.
Granted, and yet I'm still pretty firmly against space privatisation on general principles. When there's money to be made on a frontier, I feel like the last thing we want is big corporations throwing their weight around.
Practically speaking I realise NASA has its limitations, I just deeply yearn for space to be treated as a strictly peaceful public good, rather than a profitable endeavour. Now we've got the US using SpaceX as a diplomatic cudgel against Ukraine, and it's only going to get worse from here. I'm not going to stop wishing for things to have been different, even if I catch shit for it.