OT / true An asteroid full of metal

[a425couple]

Here is another piece out of the real world news
that is often connected with Sci-Fi stories.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2015/09301336-discovery-downselect.html
One of the five finalists for a space mission is to
"Psyche, led by Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University,
would rendezvous with a single asteroid, (16) Psyche, a
213-kilometer-diameter
object located in the outer part of the main asteroid belt. Astronomers
think that Psyche is a metal asteroid based on its high radar reflectivity
and high density. Did Psyche form with its metal surface, or did an
ancient hit-and-run collision strip it of its mantle? If the former, we'd
see a completely different kind of puzzle piece from the formation of
the solar system; if the latter, we'd get to peer into the core of a
planetary body. Either way, it'd be a new kind of world."

http://www.fastcompany.com/1835206/how-and-why-mine-asteroid-update
How (And Why) To Mine An Asteroid [Update]
Whirling lumps of cold space rock could one day help power our economy.
Really. That's where the newly formed Planetary Resources comes in.
By Kit Eaton
----The asteroid 16 Psyche is estimated to contain 170 million trillion tons
of nickel-iron, or enough to supply our global needs for millions of
years.---
"That's why some long-standing ideas about exploring space involve a
visit to the asteroids, because instead of having to construct a spaceship
on Earth, using up our precious resources and energy to haul it all up
out of Earth's gravity into orbit, we could send a small ship to an
asteroid to access its contents. Water could be extracted to provide
oxygen and hydrogen, and even to act as fuel itself, minerals coud be
extracted and turned into metals for construction...and a bigger ship
could evetually sail on from the asteroid. This is not just the stuff of
science fiction like Red Dwarf, NASA really has a plan to try to do this."
---
"Perhaps no one should point out to James Cameron that there's a
diamond the size of Jupiter sitting in space just 50 light-years away.

-- the Arkyd 300 series will survey asteroids up close. Their asteroid
capturing plan seems manyfold, with some larger asteroids perhaps
being strip-mined, other smaller ones captured in a shroud and sent
back for processing.

The goal is to boost the economy of Earth by bringing the "solar system
within the economic sphere of influence" of us down here, and also to
protect Earth's precious resources."