Some thoughts on Mining Asteroids vs the Moon

> What do you think, $200M for the 3 or 4 retrieval
> Spacecraft? Maybe that much again to launch them to
> escape velocity? I don't think it would be too hard
> to raise the money to process the "chunk(s)", once
> they were earth bound.

True, but $200M -- whew. If we had that kind of money to sling around,
I'd put $5-$10M into Bussard's "polywell" approach to fusion -- since
if it works, you could fly directly to the asteroid and back in a
matter of days. ("To the Moon in hours; to Mars in days; anywhere in
the solar system in weeks.") We don't know for sure that it works, but
it certainly seems worth $5M to find out.

(For more info, see http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/>.)

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...
Strout Custom Solutions, LLC