AW: [meteorite-list] advice.../ the future

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Nov 13 08:45:02 2006
Message-ID: <001801c70729$e80a6f40$4f41fea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Mark,

as far as sample return missions are concerned, we are still at a price per
gram for ordinary chondrites of 320 000 000$ - if the Hayabusa probe would
have been successful.

Gravity is quite an economically awful drag, friction too.
(I hope the US-government won't have the idea to declare a "War against
Gravity"...)

If I feed the inflation calculator with the widely reported costs of 65,000$
per gram for the Apollo-material,
I get out a little less than 300,000$/g today.
So lunaites compared to chondrites have to be articles for junk shops...

Martin

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von mark
ford
Gesendet: Montag, 13. November 2006 14:19
An: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: RE: [meteorite-list] advice.../ the future


Hi Rob,

That 'tis indeed a 'peachy utopia of a vision'! Though ironically it's the
scientists that are sending the robots to 'Farm' the Antarctic for pristine
space rocks, the collectors are the ones roaming the war zones and dry
horrible deserts of the world looking for the weathered brown chunks -
something is wrong there!?


In reality of course, in the future there will be numerous sample return
missions, mars rock will be so plentiful that they will actually give it
away with Frosties, and 'Lunar rock pens' will be cheaper than the plastic
ones. Yeah right!

Or due to the high prices, there will be so many ''reproduction'' meteorites
and moldavite tektites flooding onto the market, that public suspicion of
all things 'meteorite' will be such, that only a select band of collectors
will know the difference and supply will thus still be plentiful- oh sorry
that's now isn't it!!!

No joking aside, every few years a nice big fall does seem to come along,
Lesotho, Park forest, etc, that will keep the supply chain topped up, but
prices will probably go up, people wont be chucking NWA's in boxes and
selling them by the Kilo like sweets that for sure.

On the subject of large catastrophic impacts, it would be interesting to see
what would happen in such a case, of course anything big enough to vaporize
a city probably wouldn't have any/much cosmic material left, so any small
fragments might actually be quite valuable! And might even ironically get
public interest right up to such an extent that there are fewer meteorites
available for sale and thus higher prices.

That reminds me, time for another decent fall methinks, Cosmic gods!!

Mark Ford
Received on Mon 13 Nov 2006 08:44:55 AM PST