this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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But these areas aren't free. There are people or organizations (governments) owning these lands. They will want to have at least a non significant amount of your profits. You would have to redirect the asteroid with some precision and it would take a lot of resources to do so. You will loose 50% to 90% of the asteroids mass on atmospheric entry.
The redirection alone will cost you several billions and to get your money back the asteroid would have to be of a certain size so it's impact will have the effect of several megatons TNT (equivalent of hundreds of Hiroshima bombs). It will create a several hundred meter wide crater and have a much bigger blast radius.
I don't think we should give Elon Musk any stupid ideas...
Of course the government leaning the land for the landing is going to ask for a cut, but if traditional mining companies extracting materials on earth pay nothing already (if we include the externallities of mining pollution), they're not going to pay a lot for something that create value where before was just a dessert and the landing can be shopped around.
And the rest sounds like problems to be solve.