23 Jun '16 09:25>1 edit
Originally posted by googlefudgeI am not convinced.
You could even give it a nudge and drop it into Earth's gravity well and make it an
actual moon so that we can access it more easily....
~100 to ~800 thousand tonnes of materiel for building space stations out of already
in orbit that we don't have to lift into space [at ~$10,000,000 per Tonne] is a potential
multi-trillion dollar saving in launch costs.
Firstly, the cost of nudging it and then mining it for useful materials would probably exceed the launch costs of the equivalent material. Secondly, by the time all that is done, the launch costs will be considerably lower. Launch costs will likely be below 1 million dollars per tonne within the next 10 years or so.
This page lists Falcon Heavy as having a launch cost of 2.2 million dollars per tonne:
http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/what-is-the-current-cost-per-pound-to-send-something-into-leo
And that is likely before reusable rockets are taken into account. SpaceX has already achieved an approximately 50% success rate at first stage return although they are yet to prove they can reuse them.