Musk's asset accrual and paying for Mars

[Robotbeat]

It's not like space mining won't be a market at all, it just is not going to be a very *big* market compared to telecommunications (or selling cars and stuff to people).

Lots of space enthusiasts think space mining (usually for water or PGMs or He3) is the "real" golden ticket for the space industry, but the telecommunications market is actually much larger in terms of revenue... And also a lot easier for space to compete!

[OTV Booster]

Telecoms is probably the bigger space market we can hope for in our lifetimes. So unless SpaceX starts getting involved in more terrestrial markets (speculation: power-to-gas? After all, they’ll need that tech for Mars), Starlink will probably dominate their market cap.

My ultimate hope for asteroid mining to be the big ticket permanent revenue source....

Mining for WHAT, exactly? Don't say water. Water is a secondary market to other space industries (you're effectively promising that satellite companies won't have to spend as much on launch costs to do stuff they want to do, so you're competing against the launch market and you'll necessarily have less revenue than your customers, the satellite operators who are paying you). Earth has plenty of water.

Look up the actual total market (in millions or billions CURRENT total global market revenue) for the thing you intend to mine that you think will be bigger than telecommunications.

Just because asteroid mining seems to be totally uneconomic in the near term, and has been discussed on NSF repeatedly, including estimates of costs and profits (or none) it doesn't mean anyone who pokes their head above the parapet should be immediately shot down.
If in maybe 30 years there is a space economy with communities on Mars and the Moon... and asteroid mining, there will be intermediate steps between now and then, some not profitable, and funded as research or pathfinders, by government or privately. 
Also a "hope" statement  allows for difficulty or even impossibility! And "ultimate" tends to mean quite some way in the future!

That’s a non-answer. WHAT WOULD YOU MINE?

ISTM the question is a little backwards. The question is more reasonably: what would be needed and asteroid mineable? We know only the broad strokes of future needs. I've been working through a lot of old (1970's - 1990's) SF. How much was gotten right is impressive. What is interesting is how the future was always seen in the context of what was current. The context always changes with time, so it's impossible to really know the resource needs even 30 years down the road.


We know almost nothing of what the asteroids offer but it is not unreasonable to assume the constituent makeup is roughly somewhere between that of Mars and Jupiter.


We don't know if they were mostly a planet that failed to form or a proto planet(s) that were disrupted. If proto planets, they may have experienced mineral differentiation before breakup. This means that minerals could be well exposed and reduced refining needed.


We just don't know! The asteroids my not be worth the bother or they may be the path to Martian economic independence. The potential rewards are so high it would be crazy not to look.


For Mars it will be a question of critical importance. For Earth, Mars will be another nagging economic thorn in the side that can be fixed by telling Mars, 'No More. Come home or die'. For this reason alone I expect Mars to take the lead in asteroid exploration.


Mars is better sited for asteroid exploration. It will be a highly technical society. With all those abandoned SS's and maybe a home brew 3d printed CO engine, Mars might have a native space capability much sooner than you think. For incentive, Mars will have all the same on orbit asset needs as earth, except hopefully, military. The asteroids are not all that great a further leap.


YMMV
Phil

[ncb1397]

Non energy mining was worth about $1.4 trillion dollars annually currently^[1]. Global telecom is about $1.7 trillion dollars.<sup>[2]

[1]</sup>https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/global-mining-industry-value-was-69-of-world-gdp-last-year-china-says
^[2]https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/global-telecom-services-market#:~:text=The%20global%20telecom%20services%20market,5.0%25%20from%202020%20to%202027

As such there are potential scenarios where space based mining is bigger than space based telecom. Say space based telecom has 20% market share - that would be $340 billion annually. Then say that Space based non energy mining is 27% market share - that would be $378 billion annually.

That being said, currently spaced based internet is bigger then space based materials...by a long shot.

[OTV Booster]

Because no one is brave enough to meet my challenge, let's just say it clearly:

Platinum group metals is a tiny market. Maybe $10 billion per year GLOBALLY. MINISCULE compared to the ~$1.5 trillion telecommunications market.


HECK, even all mining revenue globally is only about $700 billion per year!!! Half the size of telecommunications. So even if you insisted on taking over literally the ENTIRE terrestrial mining market (really? you're going to get sand and iron and gravel from space?), it'd be half the size of the market that Starlink is playing in.

Space mining just isn't that big of a thing compared to telecommunications. And it won't be until more people are living in space than on the Earth.

Chill bro. It's not a question of being brave enough to give an answer. It's a question that can not be answered without a window into the future.


We all need to take a breath. Robo, I'd offer you a single malt it I could figure out how to make it an attachment. 


Phil

[Robotbeat]

Because no one is brave enough to meet my challenge, let's just say it clearly:

Platinum group metals is a tiny market. Maybe $10 billion per year GLOBALLY. MINISCULE compared to the ~$1.5 trillion telecommunications market.


HECK, even all mining revenue globally is only about $700 billion per year!!! Half the size of telecommunications. So even if you insisted on taking over literally the ENTIRE terrestrial mining market (really? you're going to get sand and iron and gravel from space?), it'd be half the size of the market that Starlink is playing in.

Space mining just isn't that big of a thing compared to telecommunications. And it won't be until more people are living in space than on the Earth.

Chill bro. It's not a question of being brave enough to give an answer. It's a question that can not be answered without a window into the future.


We all need to take a breath. Robo, I'd offer you a single malt it I could figure out how to make it an attachment. 


Phil

Hey, if it cannot have an answer, why even bring it up? We can’t speak sensibly about it, if you’re correct..


I’m just trying to get people to talk in specifics instead of pure, non-quantitative handwaving.

[OTV Booster]

Because no one is brave enough to meet my challenge, let's just say it clearly:

Platinum group metals is a tiny market. Maybe $10 billion per year GLOBALLY. MINISCULE compared to the ~$1.5 trillion telecommunications market.


HECK, even all mining revenue globally is only about $700 billion per year!!! Half the size of telecommunications. So even if you insisted on taking over literally the ENTIRE terrestrial mining market (really? you're going to get sand and iron and gravel from space?), it'd be half the size of the market that Starlink is playing in.

Space mining just isn't that big of a thing compared to telecommunications. And it won't be until more people are living in space than on the Earth.

Chill bro. It's not a question of being brave enough to give an answer. It's a question that can not be answered without a window into the future.


We all need to take a breath. Robo, I'd offer you a single malt it I could figure out how to make it an attachment. 


Phil

Hey, if it cannot have an answer, why even bring it up? We can’t speak sensibly about it, if you’re correct..


I’m just trying to get people to talk in specifics instead of pure, non-quantitative handwaving.

Let me put the argument you from a slightly different angle. In a very real sense asteroid mining is a business question. All business plans start with an idea but ultimately they have to be backed by numbers.


The business case for asteroid mining is impossible to make at this time. We lack the technology, we not know even the basics of asteroid mineral abundance, we do not know the the market environment or customer base faced when the technology might come on line.


In other words, it's only an idea, not a business plan. There are no numbers. What we have is blue sky speculation, mostly about factors that might influence the numbers when asteroid mining becomes a physical possibility.


Somewhere is 15 year old kid who is mesmerized by space and who will go on to become a mining engineer. In 15 years he or she is going to fight to get on a Mars manifest. And all the while having an idea that slowly morphs into a business plan - if the numbers work.


Stop by Kansas for that single malt sometime.


Phil

[Robotbeat]

Because no one is brave enough to meet my challenge, let's just say it clearly:

Platinum group metals is a tiny market. Maybe $10 billion per year GLOBALLY. MINISCULE compared to the ~$1.5 trillion telecommunications market.


HECK, even all mining revenue globally is only about $700 billion per year!!! Half the size of telecommunications. So even if you insisted on taking over literally the ENTIRE terrestrial mining market (really? you're going to get sand and iron and gravel from space?), it'd be half the size of the market that Starlink is playing in.

Space mining just isn't that big of a thing compared to telecommunications. And it won't be until more people are living in space than on the Earth.

Chill bro. It's not a question of being brave enough to give an answer. It's a question that can not be answered without a window into the future.


We all need to take a breath. Robo, I'd offer you a single malt it I could figure out how to make it an attachment. 


Phil

Hey, if it cannot have an answer, why even bring it up? We can’t speak sensibly about it, if you’re correct..


I’m just trying to get people to talk in specifics instead of pure, non-quantitative handwaving.

Let me put the argument you from a slightly different angle. In a very real sense asteroid mining is a business question. All business plans start with an idea but ultimately they have to be backed by numbers.


The business case for asteroid mining is impossible to make at this time. We lack the technology, we not know even the basics of asteroid mineral abundance, we do not know the the market environment or customer base faced when the technology might come on line.


In other words, it's only an idea, not a business plan. There are no numbers. What we have is blue sky speculation, mostly about factors that might influence the numbers when asteroid mining becomes a physical possibility.


Somewhere is 15 year old kid who is mesmerized by space and who will go on to become a mining engineer. In 15 years he or she is going to fight to get on a Mars manifest. And all the while having an idea that slowly morphs into a business plan - if the numbers work.


Stop by Kansas for that single malt sometime.


Phil

Even putting aside the *cost* (supply-side) of asteroid mining (which depends on technology, what resources are actually available, etc), we can talk sensibly about addressable market size (demand) by looking at the existing market. It's not perfect, but it's much better than pure handwaving. Here's what we can tell so far, in terms of *quantitative* aspects of market demand:

1) The market for gold is at least an order of magnitude larger than the market for PGMs (which are sometimes touted as this huge market for asteroid mining).

2) The market for telecommunications is an order of magnitude larger than it is even for gold.

Musk gets this. That's why Starlink and not asteroid mining.

I fully support asteroid mining as a way to leverage space resources and get more done "out there", but as far as "asset accrual," it's almost certainly going to be smaller than something like Starlink. Almost certainly even smaller than the EXISTING, >$100 billion/year satellite telecommunications market.

[Robotbeat]

Non energy mining was worth about $1.4 trillion dollars annually currently^[1]. Global telecom is about $1.7 trillion dollars.<sup>[2]

[1]</sup>https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/global-mining-industry-value-was-69-of-world-gdp-last-year-china-says
^[2]https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/global-telecom-services-market#:~:text=The%20global%20telecom%20services%20market,5.0%25%20from%202020%20to%202027

As such there are potential scenarios where space based mining is bigger than space based telecom. Say space based telecom has 20% market share - that would be $340 billion annually. Then say that Space based non energy mining is 28% market share - that would be $378 billion annually.

That being said, currently spaced based internet is bigger then space based materials...by a long shot.

Thanks. the figure I got was $695 billion in annual revenue for the top 50 mining companies (from Statistica), with the attached claim that it corresponds to the "vast majority" of the mining industry revenue.

I believe your number is at least as viable. I'm not sure Statistica is including state-owned companies, etc, that don't necessarily need to include revenue publicly. (But also, the GDP figure could be in PPP, which would kind of artificially increase the apparent revenue of mining companies in places that PPP is kind to.)

Regardless, the overall point is roughly the same for both numbers (they're within less than half an order of magnitude), and I appreciate you providing us with that estimate.

[M.E.T.]

Because no one is brave enough to meet my challenge, let's just say it clearly:

Platinum group metals is a tiny market. Maybe $10 billion per year GLOBALLY. MINISCULE compared to the ~$1.5 trillion telecommunications market.


HECK, even all mining revenue globally is only about $700 billion per year!!! Half the size of telecommunications. So even if you insisted on taking over literally the ENTIRE terrestrial mining market (really? you're going to get sand and iron and gravel from space?), it'd be half the size of the market that Starlink is playing in.

Space mining just isn't that big of a thing compared to telecommunications. And it won't be until more people are living in space than on the Earth.

Chill bro. It's not a question of being brave enough to give an answer. It's a question that can not be answered without a window into the future.


We all need to take a breath. Robo, I'd offer you a single malt it I could figure out how to make it an attachment. 


Phil

Hey, if it cannot have an answer, why even bring it up? We can’t speak sensibly about it, if you’re correct..


I’m just trying to get people to talk in specifics instead of pure, non-quantitative handwaving.

To answer your question, let’s start with gold as an example. I’ve said before, 100 tons of gold has a market value of about $5B. If you can mine it for $4.5B you make $500M per Starship return trip.

As for the addressable market - I think you overestimate somewhat how much of the Telecoms market is accessible to space based service providers. Frankly, Starlink, while very exciting, seems to only be superior to terrestrial services where fibre is not worth installing due to low population densities. So, it would seem that the 2-3% of the market that Elon himself has mentioned is probably the realistic ceiling for space based internet services. Let’s call it $50B a year. Split among however many competitors eventually build successful constellations.

By contrast Starship would make SpaceX pretty much the only company that can even think of economically accessing asteroids for mining purposes.

In the long term, as the population grows and fibre expands, Starlink’s market shrinks, while the opposite is true of asteroid mining. As the earth’s resources deplete and deeper extraction gradually grows more expensive, the business case for asteroid mining just grows stronger.

I would not cast a verdict on the long term comparative market potential of the two industries too quickly. Besides, it’s not like I’m arguing for them to choose one over the other. Instead I’m saying they should go for both. And in fact the first allows them to develop the transport system (Starship) needed for the second.

Instead of $30B a year from Starlink only, why not eventually make $30B a year from Starlink AND $30B a year from gold mining from asteroids.

[Robotbeat]

Absolutely, but i think you're drastically underestimating the ambition of Starlink. They plan to continually upgrade Starlink. In a few years, it will be orders of magnitude more capable. They plan on leveraging Starship to allow larger and more numerous satellites with much more capability. And once sat-to-sat is working, they can also bypass backbone connections (saving money and opening up more market) and offer lower intercontinental latency than any other option.

They will be able to compete with fiber. Not completely, but to the point where people in the US will all have the option of Starlink instead of nothing or instead of a monopoly/duopoly of over-priced fiber or cable providers. Comcast alone has a revenue of $100 billion (and a net worth of $200 billion), and that's basically one country (and only part of that country).

Starlink isn't in the cell business, but they potentially could be. There are some interesting technologies now for enabling satellite LTE communications (not just text, but voice and even decent throughput LTE speeds) with *completely unmodified* cellphones. With a powerful enough constellation, they could also service cellphones.

Starlink probably won't be taking over the entire telecommunications market, but they can play in almost every area, at least to some extent.

There also aren't any obvious giant gold nuggets out there. A Starlink that is competing with fiber is more likely and has lower technological requirements than asteroid mining of massive amounts of gold or platinum.

[Zed_Noir]

A fully working constellation could enable Starlink to be a bank.

Especially in rural ares where a Starlink ground terminal with either build in wi-fi or LTE could also provide local wireless coverage.

The SX CTO was one of the founder of Paypal after all.

[ncb1397]

Absolutely, but i think you're drastically underestimating the ambition of Starlink. They plan to continually upgrade Starlink. In a few years, it will be orders of magnitude more capable. They plan on leveraging Starship to allow larger and more numerous satellites with much more capability. And once sat-to-sat is working, they can also bypass backbone connections (saving money and opening up more market) and offer lower intercontinental latency than any other option.

They will be able to compete with fiber. Not completely, but to the point where people in the US will all have the option of Starlink instead of nothing or instead of a monopoly/duopoly of over-priced fiber or cable providers. Comcast alone has a revenue of $100 billion (and a net worth of $200 billion), and that's basically one country (and only part of that country).

Starlink isn't in the cell business, but they potentially could be. There are some interesting technologies now for enabling satellite LTE communications (not just text, but voice and even decent throughput LTE speeds) with *completely unmodified* cellphones. With a powerful enough constellation, they could also service cellphones.

Starlink probably won't be taking over the entire telecommunications market, but they can play in almost every area, at least to some extent.

There also aren't any obvious giant gold nuggets out there. A Starlink that is competing with fiber is more likely and has lower technological requirements than asteroid mining of massive amounts of gold or platinum.

Hmm, there are about 60 septillion dollars worth of gold in the sun. That is a pretty big nugget. Pretty hard to mine, but given the comparative mass of the asteroid belt to the sun and extrapolating linearly(came from the same solar nebula after all), that would "only" be $100 quadrillion dollars in the asteroid belt (probably all of it extractable given they are small bodies). So, let's say that you extract 1/100,000th of the gold out there in the belt and have 10% profit margins, that should be good to generate 100 billion dollars in profits or more than his current net worth. It also wouldn't swamp the terrestrial supply crashing prices.

Anyways, the obvious gold nugget is 16 Psyche. Being 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt, you would only need to mine about .1% of the supply to meet your goal. And SpaceX is already ahead of you and launching a prospecting mission in 2 years  .

[M.E.T.]

Absolutely, but i think you're drastically underestimating the ambition of Starlink. They plan to continually upgrade Starlink. In a few years, it will be orders of magnitude more capable. They plan on leveraging Starship to allow larger and more numerous satellites with much more capability. And once sat-to-sat is working, they can also bypass backbone connections (saving money and opening up more market) and offer lower intercontinental latency than any other option.

They will be able to compete with fiber. Not completely, but to the point where people in the US will all have the option of Starlink instead of nothing or instead of a monopoly/duopoly of over-priced fiber or cable providers. Comcast alone has a revenue of $100 billion (and a net worth of $200 billion), and that's basically one country (and only part of that country).

Starlink isn't in the cell business, but they potentially could be. There are some interesting technologies now for enabling satellite LTE communications (not just text, but voice and even decent throughput LTE speeds) with *completely unmodified* cellphones. With a powerful enough constellation, they could also service cellphones.

Starlink probably won't be taking over the entire telecommunications market, but they can play in almost every area, at least to some extent.

There also aren't any obvious giant gold nuggets out there. A Starlink that is competing with fiber is more likely and has lower technological requirements than asteroid mining of massive amounts of gold or platinum.

Hmm, there are about 60 septillion dollars worth of gold in the sun. That is a pretty big nugget. Pretty hard to mine, but given the comparative mass of the asteroid belt to the sun and extrapolating linearly(came from the same solar nebula after all), that would "only" be $100 quadrillion dollars in the asteroid belt (probably all of it extractable given they are small bodies). So, let's say that you extract 1/100,000th of the gold out there in the belt and have 10% profit margins, that should be good to generate 100 billion dollars in profits or more than his current net worth. It also wouldn't swamp the terrestrial supply crashing prices.

Well, my business case for asteroid gold mining is fairly simple.

If Starship works as intended, you can put mass in orbit for about $100k a ton. If you conservatively assume that you need 5 Starship launches to LEO (including tanker launches) for every 1 Starship sent out to a viable asteroid, that means 50,000 tons launched to orbit for 10,000 tons of cargo delivered to the asteroid.

So that's $5B in transport costs to get 10,000 tons of mining equipment and supplies to the asteroid. $500k per ton transported to the asteroid. That sounds like more than enough equipment to set up a mining base at an asteroid. (Heck, maybe I'm wildly over compensating and you actually only need 1,000 tons of equipment to set up a viable mining base. But let's go for 10,000 tons to be generous). Assume the equipment itself costs say a million dollars a ton, so that gives you another $10 billion dollars in manufacturing cost on top of the $5B to transport it. So $15B total to set up a working mining operation at the asteroid.

Now it is just a matter of sending Starships to and from the asteroid to transport mined ore back to earth. About $50m per round trip, calculated on the same basis as above. If each trip can transport 100 tons of gold back to earth, that's $5B in gold you bring back at a cost of $50M. You only need maybe 3 such round trips to pay back your entire initial investment.

Ongoing supplies to the base will be an insignificant cost compared to that type of return per trip. This seems like a very viable business. With potential for huge profits made possible by Starship, which is effectively a space elevator, making the transportation of mass to and from orbit an easy feat.

[Robotbeat]

Absolutely, but i think you're drastically underestimating the ambition of Starlink. They plan to continually upgrade Starlink. In a few years, it will be orders of magnitude more capable. They plan on leveraging Starship to allow larger and more numerous satellites with much more capability. And once sat-to-sat is working, they can also bypass backbone connections (saving money and opening up more market) and offer lower intercontinental latency than any other option.

They will be able to compete with fiber. Not completely, but to the point where people in the US will all have the option of Starlink instead of nothing or instead of a monopoly/duopoly of over-priced fiber or cable providers. Comcast alone has a revenue of $100 billion (and a net worth of $200 billion), and that's basically one country (and only part of that country).

Starlink isn't in the cell business, but they potentially could be. There are some interesting technologies now for enabling satellite LTE communications (not just text, but voice and even decent throughput LTE speeds) with *completely unmodified* cellphones. With a powerful enough constellation, they could also service cellphones.

Starlink probably won't be taking over the entire telecommunications market, but they can play in almost every area, at least to some extent.

There also aren't any obvious giant gold nuggets out there. A Starlink that is competing with fiber is more likely and has lower technological requirements than asteroid mining of massive amounts of gold or platinum.

Hmm, there are about 60 septillion dollars worth of gold in the sun. That is a pretty big nugget. Pretty hard to mine, but given the comparative mass of the asteroid belt to the sun and extrapolating linearly(came from the same solar nebula after all), that would "only" be $100 quadrillion dollars in the asteroid belt (probably all of it extractable given they are small bodies). So, let's say that you extract 1/100,000th of the gold out there in the belt and have 10% profit margins, that should be good to generate 100 billion dollars in profits or more than his current net worth. It also wouldn't swamp the terrestrial supply crashing prices.

The mass of the Earth's crust at about 3*10^22 kg vastly outmasses the entire asteroid belt, which has a mass of about 3*10^21kg.

We cannot use supply-side as an argument for value here. Swimming in gold just means gold is basically worthless except as a really poor structural material (weak and heavy). Maybe we can use it instead of gravel for roads.

Have to look at existing demand to have some idea about what the value could be.

[DistantTemple]

Is Gold still one of the best materials for tiny wires inside chip packaging, and for coatings on contacts etc? I bet the volume of microelectronics continues on an upward trajectory, meaning a growing need for Gold.... much of it is not recovered I guess! Its not all just bling!

[Robotbeat]

Is Gold still one of the best materials for tiny wires inside chip packaging, and for coatings on contacts etc? I bet the volume of microelectronics continues on an upward trajectory, meaning a growing need for Gold.... much of it is not recovered I guess! Its not all just bling!

Nope. Aluminum, silver, and copper are better for tiny wires. Gold is good for contacts, yes, but you only need a ridiculously tiny amount of it.

It mostly IS just for bling and something to fill vaults with. I guess we could use it for bullets and ballast as it’s really dense like lead.

[ncb1397]

Gold is the most non-reactive metal out there. A bit too expensive to electroplate ships with though. Also has antibacterial properties and could be used more extensively in the medical field.

Anyways, gold isn't just bling, it is a currency! Mining is basically an internationally legitimate way to privately own a printing press. If the price of gold goes lower, central banks will probably end up buying more to maintain their reserves. And the amount extracted out of asteroids would necessarily be regulated by prices (if the price goes below asteroid production costs, production would slow or cease for a time). As such, asteroid mining wouldn't likely reduce prices below asteroid mining costs (long term anyway).

[AC in NC]

Well, my business case for asteroid gold mining is fairly simple.

If Starship works as intended, you can put mass in orbit for about $100k a ton. If you conservatively assume that you need 5 Starship launches to LEO (including tanker launches) for every 1 Starship sent out to a viable asteroid, that means 50,000 tons launched to orbit for 10,000 tons of cargo delivered to the asteroid.

So that's $5B in transport costs to get 10,000 tons of mining equipment and supplies to the asteroid. $500k per ton transported to the asteroid. That sounds like more than enough equipment to set up a mining base at an asteroid. (Heck, maybe I'm wildly over compensating and you actually only need 1,000 tons of equipment to set up a viable mining base. But let's go for 10,000 tons to be generous). Assume the equipment itself costs say a million dollars a ton, so that gives you another $10 billion dollars in manufacturing cost on top of the $5B to transport it. So $15B total to set up a working mining operation at the asteroid.

Now it is just a matter of sending Starships to and from the asteroid to transport mined ore back to earth. About $50m per round trip, calculated on the same basis as above. If each trip can transport 100 tons of gold back to earth, that's $5B in gold you bring back at a cost of $50M. You only need maybe 3 such round trips to pay back your entire initial investment.

Ongoing supplies to the base will be an insignificant cost compared to that type of return per trip. This seems like a very viable business. With potential for huge profits made possible by Starship, which is effectively a space elevator, making the transportation of mass to and from orbit an easy feat.

While admittedly there is enormous hand-waving on both sides of the economic feasibility argument, the pro-argument seems incredibly naive about the physical logistics of locating and extracting a resource like AU from asteroids.

It would be fascinating to understand what type of equipment is proposed to be produced at $1M/ton and how it would go about identifying AU deposits and extracting them.  The logistics are really, really difficult.  It strikes me that this part is vastly underestimated.  I'm of the camp that is doubtful that there are any meaningful deposits that can be effectively exploited absent stumbling upon an asteroid-class nugget.

[docmordrid]

ISTM it's easier to make the case for mining in space for manufacturing in space, not back on Earth unless producing the finished product is not possible here.

[tbellman]

Swimming in gold just means gold is basically worthless except as a really poor structural material (weak and heavy). Maybe we can use it instead of gravel for roads.

That's a bit of an exaggeration.  About 10% of the gold production is used for industrial purposes, and in several cases the only reasonable substitutes are either much worse, or much more expensive.

Is Gold still one of the best materials for tiny wires inside chip packaging, and for coatings on contacts etc? I bet the volume of microelectronics continues on an upward trajectory, meaning a growing need for Gold.... much of it is not recovered I guess! Its not all just bling!

Nope. Aluminum, silver, and copper are better for tiny wires. Gold is good for contacts, yes, but you only need a ridiculously tiny amount of it.

While silver and copper are better electrical conductors than gold (but aluminium is slightly worse), they are all less malleable and ductile.  Which is why gold is used for very thin wires, and not other metals.

Yes, you only need a very small amount of gold per contact, but there are lots of contacts in the world.  Just that is several billion dollars per year.


The above does not mean that I think space mining of gold will be profitable in the foreseeable future.  I don't.  And I agree with you on the general thrust of your argument; it was just a couple of details that I disagreed with.