"We're
going to go to the source," Anderson said. "The platinum-group metals
are many orders of magnitude easier to access in the high-concentration
platinum asteroids than
they are in the Earth's crust."
ANSWER: GARBAGE-SWEEPING
STATEMENT, COMPARE WITH BUSHVELD COMPLEX. THERE IS NO MINED ASTEROID YET.
And there are
a lot of precious
metals up there waiting to be mined. A single platinum-rich space
rock 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide contains the equivalent of all the
platinum-group metals ever mined throughout human history, company officials
said.
ANSWER: THUMB SUCK. HOW CAN YOU COMPARE ONE TINY 500 METER ASTEROID WITH THE BUSHVELD COMPLEX OF 300 MILES BY 200 MILES BY EIGHT MILES THICK? ANOTHER THOUGHTLESS NON RESEARCHED PIECE OF MINDLESS NATTER. HAS ANYONE MINED A SINGLE ASTEROID SO FAR FOR PLATINUM? ASTEROIDS ARE VERY DIFFERENT AND VARIED.
The Bushveld Complex is a prime gigantic colossal rich area that is 4000 feet above sea level in the middle of the continental South Africa and is not an asteroid impact. It has proven and probable reserves of over 300 million ounces of platinum and palladium and more than 1600 million ounces of inferred resources. Check your facts before you open your mouth. It just sounds so stupid. I know your statements are pure hype. I wonder about the rest of the Planetary Resources hype and how much thumb suck and pie in the sky that is. Investors will not flock to you if you get the basics wrong.
Looking at the state of technology we have to day, I have no idea how you wish to mine an asteroid moving at say 15-30 kilometers per second and then re-launch the spacecraft again with a full load after drilling and blasting is complete. Will processing take place on the asteroid or will you drag pieces of the rock to Earth for processing? Will space planes ferry it down. I do not think this will be cheap.
What happens if your large asteroid gets away from the spacecraft that is ferrying it, Mr. Eric Anderson of Planetary Resources, and it crashes into Earth? Maybe that will knock some sense into your head or it could simply wipe out all species on the Earth. Maybe, the world wide layer of Iridium at the K-T extinction that supposedly killed the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago was due to an advanced civilization ferrying Nickel-iron meteorites to Earth. We could call it the "Platinum Brainwash Extinction." (PBE)
Bruce Cameron can make a movie about Aliens visiting the barren Earth and re-seeding the Earth. It could be set a hundred to two hundred years into the future. The Aliens could record for galactic history. "All mankind and animals were killed on Planet Earth by a species called Homo sapiens (Wise Man). Obviously, a name that was given to their kind by their kind and used for self glorification, to eliminate doubt, allowing them to be excused from any and every wrong decision. We will never really know. It was their greed for shiny metals that doomed the entire planet. 5 billion years of genetic diversity have been lost. Humans lost control of a 6 mile nickel iron meteorite, while ferrying it to a near Earth Orbit for mining. The impact, plate tectonic-subduction zone cataclysmic earthquakes and resulting tsunamis ultimately destroyed the Earth's species. The loss of galactic diversity is catastrophic for this part of the galaxy. The Human genetic code is noted. Please eliminate this species should it ever begin again anywhere in our galaxy. It is too virus-like and too self destructive and too selfish to share resources with any other species. It is therefore not worthy of saving or genetically modifying. The genetic diversity of entire planets cannot be lost again because of the irrational behavior of one species like mankind. Close log."
At this stage, today the 24th of April, it seems a little late for an April fool's joke. I assume Planetary Resouces, Inc. is not joking, but genuinely trying to milk the public.
Please see a comparison of the platinum ore bodies around the world and their reserves by Prof. Grant Cawthorn, PhD., University of Edinburgh . He has been at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and has taught igneous petrology and written papers on the Bushveld Complex for more than 35 years. South African Journal of Science 95, November/December 1999 http://www.platinum.matthey.com/uploaded_files/publications/Cawthorn.pdf
Chris Landau (South African-USA geologist)
April 24, 2012
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