Mining in Space, and Banning Inflation
Often, answering a silly question can lead to better understanding. Randall Munroe proved that in the context of physics via his two “What If” books. Tim Harford tries the same with “silly” economics questions . There’s a lot of talk on mining asteroids for ores. That’s the first question Harford takes on. How big would an asteroid need to be to make it worth a space mission to mine it? There are 3 aspects to consider, he says. First, engineering. Either you setup a refinery in space (very expensive, maintenance overheads) or you bring the raw ore back to earth (very messy. And expensive). Second, economics. Increase the supply of something and prices could drop. Which makes any cost-benefit analysis tricky and error-prone. Third, physics. It is very expensive to carry anything into space – the extracting equipment, tools etc. All of that also means that it is better to set up some system in space to launch, receive and refine things (in space). Some place cheaper ...