[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...

[cryptoz]

> They're on a planet

or a small asteroid, which has a negligible gravity well.

[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.