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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ToughCOINS, post: 26188546, member: 20480&quot;]How true, but surely you knew what I meant.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t care what we can accomplish in the way of delivering mining machinery to an asteroid, the costs of returning the product to Earth are insurmountable for almost all rare / precious metals.</p><p><br /></p><p>Returning precious metals to Earth (safely) is a laughable concept because of their sheer weight, even if refined on the asteroid.</p><p><br /></p><p>Returning rare earth metals is likewise untenable because their refinement processes are so onerous that they would have to be returned to Earth in ore form.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, anyone wanting to invest in mining the asteroid would surely not want to await the extended delivery associated with orbital mechanics to realize a return on their investment, even if reentry could be reliably targeted at acceptable zones (shallow bodies of water, for one possibility).&nbsp; Besides, using orbital mechanics leaves one’s unattended payload susceptible to interception by pirates.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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