The Financial Future of Space Travel 414
gurps_npc writes " This CNNMoney story discusses the financial future of space travel. In particular it gives some nice names and numbers, such as Bezos, Musk and 3554 Amun. 3554 Amun is an small metalic asteroid that crosses Earth's pass (not on collission course) and contains over 20 trillion US dollars worth of precious metal. It is a great fact to know when trying to explain to flat-earth types that don't understand why we waste money on space travel."
Re:$20 trillion ... so what (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh, well, at least the existence of this "gold mine in the skies" gives me a good reason to say "Great, so private enterprise can fund space exploration now" and stop pouring billions of tax dollars into NASA, the world's most inefficient R&D slush-fund.
20 trillion US dollars at current prices (Score:4, Insightful)
You can guarantee that if you manage to mine this rock, prices would go down. Supply and demand.
Re:Owning an asteroid (Score:3, Insightful)
See, here's the problem. We see it now with people patenting things they could never accomplish, paying a few thousand dollars in application and lawyer fees to obtain the property rights to things they'll never actually own.
Property rights in advance is foolish, stupid, dumb, idiotic, and any number of other names you can assign. Do you know why the Gold Rush was a Rush? Because people could go west and stake out a plot of land and own it. Do you want to know how to kill the Space Rush? Sell me 3554 Amun for a million dollars, so I can sit tight here and wait for someone to bring it back for me.
You want to see a space race? "Whoever sets foot there first, wins."