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The Most Profitable Asteroid Is…
Not sure we are yet at the point where we can accurately quantify profitability but it's a start.
Artist impression of the Arkyd Interceptor, a low cost mission to explore asteroids. Credit: Planetary Resources.
The winners are, according to Asterank:
Most Profitable: 253 Mathilde, a 52.8 km-diameter C-type (carbonaceous) asteroid that has an estimated value of over $100 trillion and estimated profit of $9.53 trillion (USD)
Most Cost Effective: 2000 BM19, a very small O-type asteroid (less than 1 km wide) that makes several close approaches to Earth. Its estimated value is $18.50 trillion and an estimated profit of $3.55 trillion.
Most Valuable: 253 Mathilde
Most Accessible: 2009 WY7, another small asteroid with regular close approaches of less than 1 AU. This is an S-type asteroid, a silicaceous or “stony” object that has a high accessibility score on Asterank of 7.6577.
http://www.universetoday.com/95169/the-most-profitable-asteroid-is/
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/253_Mathilde
Consensus right now is that Mathilde is a "rubble pile" asteroid of unusually low density for its size. It sports two craters which were probably made by objects large enough to shatter a solid body. It may be pieces of a larger solid body which was shattered by a massive collision and then re-coalesced, suggesting that it could be relatively easy to scoop up and process parts of it.
It has a really nice spread of elements and minerals including the holy trinity of water, organic chemicals, and olivine, which together can be used along with solar power to create fuel, breathable air, and carbon dioxide scrubbers. Iron, magnesium and silicates are readily available for construction materials (and perhaps eventually, soils), which can be easily melted using plentiful and still fairly powerful sunlight.
The ability to maximize solar power is probably helped by its modest size and slow rotation, which would allow for constant sunlight at the poles with counter-rotating collector and reflector towers.
People could potentially go there and live there for an extended period of time with the technology we have already perfected, pretty much today. It's only a question of money now, and a hundred trillion dollars is one hell of a lot of money.
Consensus right now is that Mathilde is a "rubble pile" asteroid of unusually low density for its size. It sports two craters which were probably made by objects large enough to shatter a solid body. It may be pieces of a larger solid body which was shattered by a massive collision and then re-coalesced, suggesting that it could be relatively easy to scoop up and process parts of it.
It has a really nice spread of elements and minerals including the holy trinity of water, organic chemicals, and olivine, which together can be used along with solar power to create fuel, breathable air, and carbon dioxide scrubbers. Iron, magnesium and silicates are readily available for construction materials (and perhaps eventually, soils), which can be easily melted using plentiful and still fairly powerful sunlight.
The ability to maximize solar power is probably helped by its modest size and slow rotation, which would allow for constant sunlight at the poles with counter-rotating collector and reflector towers.
People could potentially go there and live there for an extended period of time with the technology we have already perfected, pretty much today. It's only a question of money now, and a hundred trillion dollars is one hell of a lot of money.
