If you're referring to the earth's iron-nickel core, then the comparison is moot. Mining an asteroid is theoretically feasible. Mining the earth's core is not.

Hum, no. The crust is full of Fe already. It is probably much cheaper to get it from dirt than from this asteroid, but it's concentrated on a huge amount of places.

If it was about the core, the answer for Ni would also be obvious.

> It is probably much cheaper to get it from dirt than from this asteroid

Well, delivery costs play a role as well.

If you're looking for iron for use on Earth, you're right. If you're looking for iron to use in space construction, the asteroid material is likely much cheaper.

If one believes (as I do) that the human race will either move into space or go extinct, then asteroids will be far more important for the future of our society.

> We would have to compare the costs of mining an asteroid with deep mining on Earth to discover if the Ni has any value

Perhaps I misunderstood. What do you mean by "deep mining" for nickel?

Simple solution: just crash this 140 mile diameter asteroid into Australia so it's accessible and cheap to mine. Afterwards the prices of iron and nickel would drop to zero!

> Afterwards the prices of iron and nickel would drop to zero!

...and so would the prices of everything else. As well as the number of life-bearing planets in the solar system.

It'll be much more useful when we want to build a ship in space rather than assuming we'd want to bring it back down into our gravity well.

Imagine the cost of launching that much iron into space...