[dsr_]

It ends with a speculation that mining other planets doesn't sound so crazy any more.

Idiots. Diamond is not intrinsically valuable; carbon is not rare, and industrial diamond is fairly cheap. Humans (and in particular one cartel) set a high value on gemstone diamonds.

It's going to be cheaper to turn waste carbon into diamond here on Earth than it is to boost any sort of mining platform out to another planet or our own asteroid belt, and this will continue to be true for many many years.

[cryptoz]

"Idiots"? Seriously?

The speculation is not merely about planets that are lightyears away. The speculation includes asteroids. The Google cofounders, and James Cameron, and others, are funding Planetary Resources, which will mine near Earth asteroids. They will be launching their first satellites in 2-3 years and plan on beginning mining operations in about 10 years.

I think you are being extremely shortsighted and rude to call people "idiots" when they speculate about mining the asteroids.

Edit: It saddens me that the top post in this thread contains such hate and name-calling towards someone with the imagination to think about the future. Come on, HN, you're supposed to be better than this.

[Dove]

The criticism does not seem to be against asteroid mining in general, but against the idea that diamonds in space would make it more viable. Diamonds, especially for industrial use, are not something Earth has a shortage of.

[cryptoz]

Why would it ever matter if Earth has a shortage of them, or if Earth needs them at all? Since we're already talking about large-scale spaceship operations, consider the diamonds may be useful in space. Perhaps extraordinarily useful.

Earth has no shortage of water, either (if you include salt water). But in space, water is one of the most valuable things imaginable. It's rocket fuel, humans need to drink it, etc. Perhaps diamond would be similar.

[Radim]

And perhaps not.

OP says mining diamonds from outer space is nonsense, with good arguments, and you say ... what exactly? That space-mined diamonds are somehow more valuable than earth-produced ones?

[cryptoz]

> and you say ... what exactly?

I say, show respect for those with opinions. Maybe diamonds in space are 100% useless, I would be totally willing to accept that fact. I'm only upset at the rudeness and name calling.

> That space-mined diamonds are somehow more valuable than earth-produced ones?

If, in 20 years, we find a use for diamonds in space, then yes, they would be much more valuable than Earth ones since you don't have to transport them to space. Additionally, it seems quite likely to me that a strong compound like diamond would indeed have its use in space.

[Radim]

Fair enough, OP's "idiots" was unnecessarily harsh.

There is indeed some chance that mining diamonds from far-off planets would make economical sense. But there is some chance for almost anything happening. It's a trivial statement that doesn't add anything IMO.

[stephengillie]

They're on a planet, so they'd still have to be transported into space.

Just because they're not on this planet...

[Retric]

Meaningful quantities of useful Diamonds are not going to form outside of significant gravity wells so 'asteroid' mining of diamonds is a waste of time. Diamonds are no where near rare enough to be worth transporting out of deep gravity wells and back to earth when they can be manufactured here cheaply carbon one of the most common elements.

Asteroid mining of other stuff is a separate issue.

[cryptoz]

> Meaningful quantities of useful Diamonds are not going to form outside of significant gravity wells so 'asteroid' mining of diamonds is a waste of time.

Meaningful quantities of helium are not going to form outside the center of stars. But that doesn't mean the universe isn't littered with it due to star explosions and such. There's plenty of reason to think that diamond will exist in places that it didn't originally form.

[sageikosa]

Helium also forms during alpha decay, perhaps not in meaningful amounts to the grand scale of things, but significant to Earthbound helium production, since 99% of it comes from this source.

[Retric]

Let's put this another way, the average jewelry store probably has more diamonds over 1/10th carrot than the entire asteroid belt. They can form from impacts, but without significant pressure they turn into other forms of carbon fairly quickly on geological timescales.

As to helium, there is plenty of it on earth to do all sorts of useful things.

PS: Yea, that means diamonds are not forever.

[cobrausn]

Until DeBeers makes sure that 'Certified Space Diamonds' are what you really want if you want to impress your significant other.

[seunghomattyang]

Related article on the topic of diamonds and cartel: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1982/02/have-you-e...

[davorb]

The value of something is not determined by what it can be used for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

[TeMPOraL]

Of course it's not - but right now the value does not follow the real supply and demand curve, but is fixed by DeBeers, et al. We have lots and lots of diamonds, and if not for a clever decades long marketing campaign, they would be mostly worthless. Going to space to get more diamonds (which we don't need, because we already have too many of them) would be a colossal waste of resources.

[stephengillie]

This exactly. DeBeers changed the way Americans value diamonds, adjusting the demand curve upwards, so Americans expect to pay more money for diamonds.

[stephengillie]

Value isn't an intrinsic quality of anything. Humans value things, usually based on their relative utility.

(Likewise, quality isn't an intrinsic value of anything, either. Humans assign qualities to things. There is a buzzword called "quality" which means "homogenized reproducibility")

[sbirchall]

Who's to say the value of Diamond has yet been truly appreciated? If I'm understanding things correctly this diamond would have formed under conditions we simply cannot recreate in a manufacturing process, given the magnitude of time and energy involved. It is not inconceivable that the properties of these carbon crystals could be VERY appealing. For an example I recall a statistic that claimed the entire _data throughput_ of the UK could be encoded on a crystal of carbon barely the size of a grain of sand. Space elevators and orbital rings spring to mind as well, and who's even saying that we want to get this stuff back to dirty old earth when we're jetting around the cosmos in our hyper diamond meta skeletons on stellar farm errands!?

[Simucal]

The entire data throughput of the UK over what amount of time?

[stephengillie]

We have tons of carbon on earth. We inhale and exhale it all the time. It's one of the top 4 atoms in the universe, along with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Turning matter from diamond to carbon-fiber, or anything else, takes much energy. This is why diamond is so hard to cut - the carbon atoms have very strong magnetic bonds, and separating them takes a lot more force than separating iron atoms when cutting steel.

[verelo]

Not to mention, diamond is only expensive because its rare and expensive to produce (and people tend to prefer to real thing...)

Once there is a lot of it, the price drops. Anyone remember the Futurama episode where they go to the gold planet?

[TeMPOraL]

It's neither rare, nor expensive to produce - and people tend to prefer real thing because DeBeers manufactured this trend through a decades-long marketing campaign. An article from 80's covers it quite well:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1982/02/have-you-e...

[zrail]

Diamond is only rare because DeBeers keeps it that way. Raw diamonds are actually fairly common as far as gemstones go.

[sageikosa]

Given that the article did end with speculation that half a second of thought should've suppressed, "idiots" doesn't sound so extreme. It just sounds as speculative as the text it references.