The US space agency NASA is going to resume the Psyche mission. In theory, this mission could make any Earthling wealthy because the destination is an asteroid containing a lot of gold and nickel. The plan is to successfully launch the mission in 2023.
NASA already made plans in 2019 to send an unmanned mission to the asteroid 16 Prsyche in 2022. However, the mission was delayed due to development and software issues. These should be solved next year, according to the space agency.
For the time being, October 10, 2023 is mentioned as the official launch date. It will take another six years – until August 2029 – for the unmanned mission to actually arrive at the asteroid.
Every earthling rich
Asteroid 16 Psyche is estimated to contain so much gold and platinum that its proceeds could, in theory, make any Earthling extremely wealthy. The total value of the raw materials on 26 kilometers of rock is a sloppy 9,000,000,000,000,000,000 euros, or 9 trillion euros. That equates to an amount of 1.3 billion euros for every inhabitant on earth.
Although the asteroid is extremely valuable due to the large amounts of iron, nickel and various precious metals, it is not the intention to mine 16 Psyche. According to NASA, there are a number of reasons for this. First of all, the asteroid can only yield astronomical amounts if it is completely brought to Earth, chopped up and processed. 16 Bringing Psyche to our planet is impossible. That could perhaps be done in steps with very expensive mining missions, but that too is in the future.
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