SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to asteroid belt

Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by pavel_lishin on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @10:06AM (#16324837)

But we do have a need for rare earth metals. Not as much as we thought we did in 2011, but it would still be a fantastic boon to manufacturing.

It wouldn't just be profitable in the sense that you can sell 1000 kilos of dysprosium to manufacturers; it would be profitable in the sense that those manufacturers could make more products, employ more people, build more electric cars or LED bulbs, etc.

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Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by alex_young on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @10:10AM (#16324858)

Say you also own an electric car company...

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Re:SpaceX craft overshot Mars’ orbit and is headed to astero... by Retric on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @10:52AM (#16325244)

rare earth metals are not nearly as rare as you might think.

The problem is they don't concentrate that much in any one area not that they can't be extracted for most places. So, we could extract them at 100x the current rate for the next 1,000 years and recycle them forever.

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