[ExI] De-Orbiting Gold

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 11:15 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This isn't the same as retrieving a sensitive satellite, it's a big
>> dang ball of gold... unhurt by being jostled around, crushed or even
>> broken apart, come on?!?
>>
>> You would design the trajectory for the minimal speed of reentry as
>> possible, and the heating seems like it could be kept under control
>> somehow. What am I missing here?
>>
>> -Kelly
>
> I'm with you on this one, Kelly.  The others seem to be saying that
> you have to factor in and pay for everything since the industrial
> revolution, and then you have to de-orbit the thing in some kind of
> high tech package to keep it safe.  Puleeeese!
>
> It's a lump of gold fer God's sake!  Stop making it difficult.  Hollow
> it out, make it a long, slim tear-drop, spray on some ablative silica
> heat shield stuff, and drop it in the ocean.  Add a drogue chute and
> marker buoy if you want to get fancy.
>
> When a bear craps in the woods, he doesn't need a six-hundred dollar
> toilet seat! (Unless he works for Lockheed-Martin.)

It sure seems like you could come up with an approach for dropping
stuff that would work. Returning the Apollo spacecraft took just a
heat shield and some parachutes... getting stuff to the surface of
mars took parachutes, heat shields and air bags.... going down seems
easier than going up.

However, after thinking it through more completely, I really think the
idea of having your money in orbit, perhaps even outside the reach of
governments... has some real merit. And eventually, with a space
elevator, or laser lifters or whatever, we can get industry into
space, or get the stuff down where we can use it.

Who thinks my idea of orbiting money is ridiculous? And whoever does
think that better say the same for Federal Reserve notes... LOL...
Bitcoin is every bit as ridiculous as orbiting gold, or gold in a
facility on the moon if you would rather... and yet it has support of
at least some people.

-Kelly