No blood for oil...how about lithium?

[Kyreth]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37677987...new_york_times

WASHINGTON - The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

Makes you wonder if the Russians would have held on more dearly to the territory if they'd known. For that matter, how much more value does Afghanistan have now if these really are as rich as the US says?

[Antithesis]

How convenient.

[Mizango]

Good for them, they needed something to create jobs and to give its country their own sense of self. Perhaps this is what they needed to all get on the same page in some form or fashion.

I am very interested to see where this is going to go.

[tyven]

what if they terrorize their own mineral deposits because they dont know any better because they only know goats and terrorism?

[Mizango]

and Opium.

[Takedown3]

in other news, north korea appears to be sitting on a giant vein of unobtainium

[ZarakiKujata]

So since its gonna take ~40 years to set up the infrastructure and local personnel trained to do this shit, does this mean we are really setting up for the long haul in Afghanistan?

[Max™]

Wait, people care about a measly trillion dollars worth of minerals, particularly iron, gold, nickel, and lithium?

http://miningasteroids.com/

The most detailed study of an asteroid shows that it contains precious metals worth at least $20,000bn.

...

If Eros is typical of stony meteorites, then it contains about 3% metal. With the known abundance's of metals in meteorites, even a very cautious estimate suggests 20,000 million tonnes of aluminium along with similar amounts of gold, platinum and other rarer metals.

...
In the 2,900 cubic kms of Eros, there is more aluminium, gold, silver, zinc and other base and precious metals than have ever been excavated in history or indeed, could ever be excavated from the upper layers of the Earth's crust.

That is just in one asteroid and not a very large one at that. There are thousands of asteroids out there.
Astronomic value

How much is Eros worth? Today's trading price for gold is about $250 per ounce or about $9m per tonne.
It means the value of the gold in asteroid Eros is about $1,000bn. That is just the gold. Platinum is even more expensive, $350 per oz. Work it out yourself. Since it contains a lot of rare elements and metals that are of use in the semiconductor industry for example, at today's prices Eros is worth more than $20,000bn.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/401227.stm

Why is it a big deal if it's $1,000,000,000 in Afghanistan... but it isn't a big deal if it's $20,000,000,000 in a single asteroid in space, exactly?

Spoiler: show

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rSystem-en.png
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/tal...eroid_belt.gif

http://images.iop.org/objects/phw/news/13/7/14/belt.jpg
http://www.evula.org/solarsystem/Res...eroid-Belt.gif

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just missing something here... I mean sure, it'll be comparitively easier to get the minerals we just found are near the surface there than, I dunno... send some asshole to the moon or whatnot... but it isn't really that much mineral wealth in the long term.

Are we waiting til we use everything up, and THEN we're going to head outwards?

[Kerberoz]

Irrelevant until we can find a way to move material in an out of Earth's(Mars') atmosphere efficiently. Chemical rockets are a joke, space elevators are sci-fi, and Orion isn't going anywhere until the atmospheric nuclear testing ban is lifted. We'd have permanent colonies by now if we were actually capable of sending something bigger than a sedan into space and retrieving it.

[Cephius]

Wait, people care about a measly trillion dollars worth of minerals, particularly iron, gold, nickel, and lithium?

http://miningasteroids.com/


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/401227.stm

Why is it a big deal if it's $1,000,000,000 in Afghanistan... but it isn't a big deal if it's $20,000,000,000 in a single asteroid in space, exactly?

Spoiler: show

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rSystem-en.png
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/tal...eroid_belt.gif

http://images.iop.org/objects/phw/news/13/7/14/belt.jpg
http://www.evula.org/solarsystem/Res...eroid-Belt.gif

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just missing something here... I mean sure, it'll be comparitively easier to get the minerals we just found are near the surface there than, I dunno... send some asshole to the moon or whatnot... but it isn't really that much mineral wealth in the long term.

Are we waiting til we use everything up, and THEN we're going to head outwards?

Is this even a serious post? Are you implying it's easy/cheap to set up a space mining operation when it takes billions of dollars and several countries 10 years just to build a measly space station? You shouldn't need someone to explain to you how much easier/cheaper it is to extract minerals here on Earth. That link you provided reads as if it were written by a 13 year old.

And yeah, we're all shocked that a country we invaded is *gasp* rich in something we want.

[Olo401]

Lithium is in HUGE demand in the US right now with the push for renewable energy. Previously the major known deposits of it in the world were in South America..

[Takedown3]

this is at least the second time that max has been touting his mining in space dreams. dreams cuz right now that shit just aint a reality. i'm with you tho hommes just show us how it's done.

[Shenrien]

'Hey guys, we have a reason to do a better job here now, so let's stop all the efforts in Iraq and start focusing on Afghanistan'

ah.. I can see it now, hopefully.

[Therin]

Just because it isn't feasible in the next 2-3 decades doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.

And these ridiculous NASA budget cuts don't help. The officials have forgotten that it takes money to make money - yes, NASA is extraordinarily expensive, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-time costs.

[antihero]

>implying NASA isn't the biggest economical waste of money in the US

[Hellfury]

here we go again with a new round of the resource curse? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse )

[Therin]

>implying NASA isn't the biggest economical waste of money in the US

Do you have the faintest understanding of how much NASA has done in terms of developing technology and equipment for the average person?

[Atreides]

is there any particular reason why this thread is now about space mining

[Therin]

Because space mining is awesome.

Hi Atre. =^-^=

[Shenrien]

Because space mining is realistic.

Hi Atre. =^-^=

ftfy.

Just because it isn't feasible in the next 2-3 decades doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning.

And these ridiculous NASA budget cuts don't help. The officials have forgotten that it takes money to make money - yes, NASA is extraordinarily expensive, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-time costs.

So driving our nation down the shitter, with the slight possible out come that we may be doing ourselves some good in the future, I don't think that is the best idea with how our nation currently looks..