Before Psyche

The asteroid 16 Psyche gets a lot of press as the Gold Mine In The Sky. We used to call them "M-types"; nowadays I'm hearing about Xk and Xe.

Whoever gets this stuff down to Earth corners the commodities market, closes all the metal mines in Colorado (again), ends metals as reserve-currency... and makes life a paradise for everyone else. Imagine what can be done with one-cent platinum catalysts.

Psyche's semimajor is 2.9 AU from the sun and it never gets closer to the sun than 2.513 AU. Mars might have more luck with it but, of course, we don't have a colony there either. NASA proposes to go prospect it next year OR MAYBE 10/18/23.

It may be, though, that we don't need to be greedy. Suppose we find a smaller asteroid also metallic but closer to us. Or at least something with the 16 Psyche semimajor with a high ellipse... and there, we're in luck.

Meet (6178)1986 DA which flew near us (perihelion 1.18 AU!) in 2019. 2016 ED85 is also so suspected although it hasn't flown by us (yet). 1986 DA's orbit has semimajor 2.8226 AU; 2016 ED85 runs at 2.98 AU. The latter actually crosses our orbit but is tilted such that it won't hit us any more than the other one would.

For both, we'll have to go out there to find more. Before now, the NHATS triage was blowing 2016 ED85 off. Wonder what they'd say now.

The Zimmer man prefers that 1986 DA should be mined and turned into spacecraft in-situ. The situs being anywhere with a lower gravity-well than we got; he's thinking Mars but, frankly, Mars has plenty of iron already in its dust and can get other metals just by picking through the many, many meteorites from its many, many craters.

2016 ED85 heads far enough out - 5.06 AU - I'd actually recommend it for an inner-system, outer-system shuttle. Get its craft to head for more watery asteroids like Ceres, or even for Hildas.

To be remembered - the smaller the body, the more-precise has to be your orbital plan. As we're seeing at Mercury. A body that's only two kilometers wide will likely have to be docked with, and if it's metallic it's not going to have the CHON they'd get at Ceres - bring your own beer, as it were.

DENSER 10/13: Kalliope. DIFFERENTIATED 2/15/22: Maybe the metal is only on the surface?