THE ERA OF TRUMP

[Speaker to Animals]

It's been awhile since I've read anything on a space elevator. Is the nanotech and other material challenges on one of those going anywhere nowadays?

Not even close to there yet.

We'd have to do most of the refining and work either on the Moon or in orbit (maybe a Lagrange point).

We could drop the rocks into shallow seas nearby, but when I suggested that, GCF freaked the fuck out, and I think his reaction is about typical, even though it wouldn't really damage anything.

[SuburbanFarmer]

It's been awhile since I've read anything on a space elevator. Is the nanotech and other material challenges on one of those going anywhere nowadays?

Not even close to there yet.

We'd have to do most of the refining and work either on the Moon or in orbit (maybe a Lagrange point).

We could drop the rocks into shallow seas nearby, but when I suggested that, GCF freaked the fuck out, and I think his reaction is about typical, even though it wouldn't really damage anything.

Depends on the size of the chunk, how much of it you expect to recover, and how good your targeting is.

All 3 are cause for concern.

You could capture human-sized chunks of minerals in a capsule, and drop it anywhere. But something tells me you’re going to push for more.

[Okeefenokee]

It's been awhile since I've read anything on a space elevator. Is the nanotech and other material challenges on one of those going anywhere nowadays?

Not even close to there yet.

We'd have to do most of the refining and work either on the Moon or in orbit (maybe a Lagrange point).

We could drop the rocks into shallow seas nearby, but when I suggested that, GCF freaked the fuck out, and I think his reaction is about typical, even though it wouldn't really damage anything.

Depends on the size of the chunk, how much of it you expect to recover, and how good your targeting is.

All 3 are cause for concern.

You could capture human-sized chunks of minerals in a capsule, and drop it anywhere. But something tells me you’re going to push for more.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's been awhile since I've read anything on a space elevator. Is the nanotech and other material challenges on one of those going anywhere nowadays?

Not even close to there yet.

We'd have to do most of the refining and work either on the Moon or in orbit (maybe a Lagrange point).

We could drop the rocks into shallow seas nearby, but when I suggested that, GCF freaked the fuck out, and I think his reaction is about typical, even though it wouldn't really damage anything.

Depends on the size of the chunk, how much of it you expect to recover, and how good your targeting is.

All 3 are cause for concern.

You could capture human-sized chunks of minerals in a capsule, and drop it anywhere. But something tells me you’re going to push for more.

Might as well just do it on the Moon. I am talking about a pretty big splash, but it wouldn't really hurt anything but maybe some fish.

To do it, you'd have to slow it down quite a lot. You'd still lose a lot of it in entry. Everything from initial entry to where it slows down to terminal velocity would be losing material, so it would have to be pretty big. From there you just deploy chutes to slow it down enough that it doesn't actually create an impact on the crust at all. You wouldn't want to land it where the ocean is too deep either. You want to easily get down there and start recovering pieces.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Not even close to there yet.

We'd have to do most of the refining and work either on the Moon or in orbit (maybe a Lagrange point).

We could drop the rocks into shallow seas nearby, but when I suggested that, GCF freaked the fuck out, and I think his reaction is about typical, even though it wouldn't really damage anything.

Depends on the size of the chunk, how much of it you expect to recover, and how good your targeting is.

All 3 are cause for concern.

You could capture human-sized chunks of minerals in a capsule, and drop it anywhere. But something tells me you’re going to push for more.

Might as well just do it on the Moon. I am talking about a pretty big splash, but it wouldn't really hurt anything but maybe some fish.

To do it, you'd have to slow it down quite a lot. You'd still lose a lot of it in entry. Everything from initial entry to where it slows down to terminal velocity would be losing material, so it would have to be pretty big. From there you just deploy chutes to slow it down enough that it doesn't actually create an impact on the crust at all. You wouldn't want to land it where the ocean is too deep either. You want to easily get down there and start recovering pieces.

Sounds unbelievably wasteful, to sprinkle most of it around the planet. Plus, depending on the aerodynamic shape of the core, you could miss your target by 100 miles, break it apart at any point during reentry, or incinerate the entire thing.

You play KSP I think. You know this is not going to space.

[Montegriffo]

We don't use the gold we already have, it just sits there in vaults gathering dust. Why do we need to spend huge amounts getting more? You will just end up with twice as much sitting in vaults worth half as much as it was. Pointless.

[SuburbanFarmer]

We don't use the gold we already have, it just sits there in vaults gathering dust. Why do we need to spend huge amounts getting more? You will just end up with twice as much sitting in vaults worth half as much as it was. Pointless.

It matters how much your nation-state controls vs. other nation-states. If Russia, for example, suddenly brought 1 ton of solid gold back to earth, it would give them an economic advantage vs. all other countries, once it's properly leveraged to 1000x its value, via currency games.

Remember that thread where I started a flashmob of Stupid, by blatantly stating that value was relative, and it's all zero-sum?
This would be an example of one player in the game suddenly having a larger portion of that finite "pie" of gold. Individual ounces are worth less, but what matters is how much of the pie you have.

[Montegriffo]

We don't use the gold we already have, it just sits there in vaults gathering dust. Why do we need to spend huge amounts getting more? You will just end up with twice as much sitting in vaults worth half as much as it was. Pointless.

It matters how much your nation-state controls vs. other nation-states. If Russia, for example, suddenly brought 1 ton of solid gold back to earth, it would give them an economic advantage vs. all other countries, once it's properly leveraged to 1000x its value, via currency games.

Remember that thread where I started a flashmob of Stupid, by blatantly stating that value was relative, and it's all zero-sum?

Gold prices would fall if you mined more of it.
Would be nice to replace all the copper with gold in my hi-fi though and gold saucepans would be fantastic so mine away.
Keeping all the pollution in space would be better than mining practises here on Earth too.
Can't ever see it being profitable though.....

[SuburbanFarmer]

We don't use the gold we already have, it just sits there in vaults gathering dust. Why do we need to spend huge amounts getting more? You will just end up with twice as much sitting in vaults worth half as much as it was. Pointless.

It matters how much your nation-state controls vs. other nation-states. If Russia, for example, suddenly brought 1 ton of solid gold back to earth, it would give them an economic advantage vs. all other countries, once it's properly leveraged to 1000x its value, via currency games.

Remember that thread where I started a flashmob of Stupid, by blatantly stating that value was relative, and it's all zero-sum?

Gold prices would fall if you mined more of it.
Would be nice to replace all the copper with gold in my hi-fi though and gold saucepans would be fantastic so mine away.
Keeping all the pollution in space would be better than mining practises here on Earth too.
Can't ever see it being profitable though.....

Probably not, no. You'd have to get a colony established to actually cut the rocks down to size, load them in the capsules, and relaunch.
It's about a generation off from now - assuming that we suddenly lift our heads from each others asses, and start doing Things again.

[Montegriffo]

I'm still thinking about solid gold saucepans. More conductive than copper and tarnish free. I really want one now, I'm going to have to start saving up....