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by ksec·14y ago·view on hn ↗
Can you really just bring back the whole Asteroid? I mean without even knowing what exactly is inside and extraterrestrial hazard? But As somebody pointed out the operation cost does not yet make this feasible. The RAW materials inside are priced by supply and demand. While the cost of mining is pretty much fixed for a long period of time.
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The idea that there could be something bizarre and dangerous is basically a Hollywood science fiction idea. In a Hollywood movie, sure, the inside of this rock would house an alien space fleet that was just waiting for us to mine it and attack and try to wipe out humanity, only to be stopped by the plucky scientist who was skeptical about the operation all along and warning about how dangerous it is.

In reality, it's a rock with some metals running through it, and that's basically a full description. It isn't covered in deadly deadly viruses; if it were, Earth would long since have been exposed to them, we're hit by space rocks all the time. It isn't housing an alien fleet. It isn't anchoring a wormhole to a dimension of Cthuluian horrors. There isn't any bizarre chemistry that will cause a chain reaction that will turn all the oceans into gel if it so much as orbits. It's a rock, except it's in space.

Everything that could go wrong in such a scenario did, a long time ago, over and over again.