Resolved: The United States Federal Government should mine astoids.

Let me start by thanking my opponent for this debate. It is very interesting to see how far we've both come since his third debate years ago on the same topic. Before beginning my final round, I would like to address a concern for dropped points. Since my opponent's R3 could only address my R2, it was only fair that my R3 only address his R2. As such, it is also only fair that my R4 only addresses his R3 and I do not reply to anything in his R4 (since he does not have the opportunity to address my R4). The only exception to that I will make is a source that he provided in his R4 that he said was supposed to be in his R2. I will address only that source and leave the rest of his R4 un-examined for fairness. Let's get going. == Here on Earth == My opponent's source is suggesting that the cost on earth will continue to rise while in space it will fall. Apart from being counter intuitive, since the only reason that the prices in space will fall are due to improvements of technology, and so rationally we can also improve our technology for mining here on earth to lower costs. It also appears to pull numbers out of a hat. It suggested that in 2005 platinum could be mined from asteroids for only about $105-$110 dollars an ounce. Since the market value for platinum at that time was about $900 per ounce [1], it would have been already head and shoulders profitable. Anything with a 80%+ profitability range is going to have investors chopping at the bits to get at. Since they weren't, we can conclude that those numbers were inaccurate at their time, and only got more inaccurate the further into the future they tried to predict. For the oceans, my opponent attempts to dismiss it because we do not know that much about the bottom of the ocean. Of course, it will take research and studying, just like it will take research and studying before just gallivanting into space to mine asteroids. However, we already have deep sea probes that we and launch to the bottom of the ocean for the purpose of studying without spending $450 million per launch. This makes it much more realistic and economic to study. My opponent also tries to discredit it by stating that the oceans have been over-fished. Fishing has nothing to do with mining on the bottom of the oceans nor any aspect of my arguments. We can argue the merits of fishing and over-fishing some other time but it is a non-sequitur here. I also see that my opponent has dropped the fact that we still have a ton of material in our own soil and all around the world, so he essentially drops all concerns about China dominance and a potential China war. It just has to relate now to the cost of it all. == Costs == Yes, humans are showing that we have the technology to mine asteroids, at 60 grams for $1 billion and will take 7 years just to make the trip [2]. The difference is making it economically profitable, which is what is currently out of our grasp for some time to come. My opponent basically concedes the water as profit point, since he argues that the water will be used to fuel the mining equipment (it should be noted, I never mentioned the cost of constantly resupplying fuel). Now for the source of my opponent that he posted in the last round but said it was supposed to be for previous rounds [3]. A quick read of this source actually shows that it does not support his claim at all. First, the $2.6 billion is not to mine the asteroid, it is only to move it into position to be easier to mine later. Per the source, "The Asteroid Capture and Return mission " the central focus of the KISS study " blueprints the technological know-how to moving an asteroid weighing about 1.1 million-pound (500,000 kilograms) to a high lunar orbit by the year 2025. The mission's cost is expected to be $2.6 billion." It should also be noted that they are only talking about very small asteroids, "The top conclusions from the KISS study are that it appears feasible to identify, capture and return close to Earth an entire asteroid that is roughly 23 feet (7 meters) wide. This so-called near-Earth asteroid (NEA) would weigh in the neighborhood of 500 tons, according to the study." They are not talking about an asteroid the size of asteroid 2012 DA14 (the $130 billion dollar asteroid in my opponent's original R2), which is 80 times more massive. If this asteroid they are talking about has the same composition, then it would only have an estimated $1.6 billion in resources in it. That means that you've already lost $1 billion just by moving it into position, before any of the actual mining costs kick in. If we were to turn that time and money into studying the ocean, think how much $2.6 billion and 10 years could do for our knowledge and understanding to open up that frontier. == Other space options == My opponent says that the moon's surface is volatile. The moon's surface is geologically dead [4] and has been for about 3 billion years. There are no earth quakes (or moon quakes), no volcanoes, no tectonic plates moving things around, it is just a dead rock. While we know that the formation of the moon was very metal poor, we also know that the moon has been bombarded by asteroids for the better part of 3 billion years and that the material of those asteroids has not gone anyways because the moon is dead, it doesn't get recycled back into the mantel like on Earth. == Conclusion == Regardless of whether the moon is truly a better option, we have confirmed that there is no risk of a China war and the costs of mining asteroids have been greatly under-represented. The main concern with the oceans was that we haven't studied them enough, though we can study them extensively far faster and for less than the cost of moving one tiny asteroid into position to mine. I thank all who took the time to read, as well as my opponent. [1] http://www.kitco.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.space.com... [4] http://lifeng.lamost.org...