Platinum miners in South Africa struck last year over job cuts and wage reductions. The strike turned violent, and 34 strikers and police were killed before tentative order was restored. While this was going on, two companies in the United States announced plans to mine for minerals, on asteroids. Popular Mechanics officially blessed the idea in its August issue. Along with these announcements came a graphic artist's conception of a monstrous device, all coiled girders and pipes, fastened like an intestinal fluke to some unidentified hunk of cosmic rock. It is a truism, of course, that graphic artists can put anything in space (not to mention in Popular Mechanics). But supposing it became reality, what could this wonderful machine suck through its umbilical that would amortize the cost of putting it there, with perhaps a little profit into the bargain? Platinum was mentioned, but would platinum pay? The experience of those South African miners has something to tell us about that.
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