X-Message-Number: 27518 From: "Bryan Hall" <> Subject: Re: Publicity breakthrough in Wall Street Journal! Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:02:43 -0800 Basie wrote: "I think it is better to hide gold coins in a national park." This probably is a bad idea. There are enormous amounts of gold, and similar metals in asteroids. Asteroid mining will probably be viable prior to the reanimation of today's cryonics patients. The large quantities of gold mined will likely cause a dramatic decrease in the price of gold - especially when ultra-advanced (and presumably ultra low cost) mining technologies are developed. How much do you think your buried treasure chest will be worth in 2150AD? See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm "In the 2,900 cubic kms of Eros, there is more aluminium, gold, silver, zinc and other base and precious metals than have ever been excavated in history or indeed, could ever be excavated from the upper layers of the Earth's crust. That is just in one asteroid and not a very large one at that. There are thousands of asteroids out there. How much is Eros worth? Today's trading price for gold is about $250 per ounce or about $9m per tonne. It means the value of the gold in asteroid Eros is about $1,000bn. That is just the gold. Platinum is even more expensive, $350 per oz. Work it out yourself. Since it contains a lot of rare elements and metals that are of use in the semiconductor industry for example, at today's prices Eros is worth more than $20,000bn. ...such a dramatic influx of metals to Earth could crash the global market for such commodities." --Bryan Hall Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27518