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It will probably be cheaper and faster to make it in a lab.

Cost to produce 1g of Antimatter in a lab:

• 1999 62.5 trillion USD
• 2006 25 billion USD
• In 7 years, The cost per gram has gone down by 1:2500.
• I can find no more recent cost estimates, as we haven't attempted mass production, we're more interested in using CERN to figure out physics than mass produce antimatter. Lets assume that no technological advances have occurred between 2006 and 2020 for sake of simplicity.

Resuming antimatter production research in 2020, and extrapolating that rate of improvement;

• 2020: 25 billion USD
• 2027: 10 million USD per gram
• 2034: 4 thousand USD per gram. $2million / kg.

I'm stopping the extrapolating here (otherwise by 2050 antimatter is cheaper than bananas, and that seems silly), however assuming technology makes 2 similar leaps between now and 2050 that it did between 1999 and 2006, and we're looking at $1 million to make in a lab what you'd capture from a solar flare.

Just to play it safe, lets allow an extra 16 years for those innovations to occur (2050 is a nice round number). We've got economies of scale working in our favour, as well as being able to replace phd physicists with minimum wage technicians.

This crazy cost extrapolation is not without precedent: Transistor costs dropped 12 orders of magnitude in 40 years, and 21 orders of magnitude in 90 years if you include vacuum tubes

The parker solar probe cost 1.5 billion USD. Assuming your anti-matter collector is as expensive as that (which is very generous), the startup costs of the collector would be better spent creating 750kg of antimatter in a lab.

With solar flare frequency varying from several per day to 2-per-month over its 11 year cycle, 750kg of antimatter would take several years to collect naturally even if you could capture every single flare and every single gram - which is pretty unrealistic to expect from orbital mechanics. You may be able to capture 1 in 10 using orbital manoeuvring, you're looking several decades to make similar quantities.

It will probably be cheaper and faster to make it in a lab.

Cost to produce 1g of Antimatter in a lab:

• 1999 62.5 trillion USD
• 2006 25 billion USD
• In 7 years, The cost per gram has gone down by 1:2500.
• I can find no more recent cost estimates, as we haven't attempted mass production, we're more interested in using CERN to figure out physics than mass produce antimatter. Lets assume that no technological advances have occurred between 2006 and 2020 for sake of simplicity.

Resuming antimatter production research in 2020, and extrapolating that rate of improvement;

• 2020: 25 billion USD
• 2027: 10 million USD per gram.
• 2034: 4 thousand USD per gram. $2million / kg.

I'm stopping the extrapolating here (otherwise by 2050 antimatter is cheaper than bananas, and that seems silly), however assuming technology makes 2 similar leaps between now and 2050 that it did between 1999 and 2006, and we're looking at $1 million to make in a lab what you'd capture from a solar flare.

Just to play it safe, lets allow an extra 16 years for those innovations to occur (2050 is a nice round number). We've got economies of scale working in our favour, as well as being able to replace phd physicists with minimum wage technicians.

This crazy cost extrapolation is not without precedent: Transistor costs dropped 12 orders of magnitude in 40 years, and 21 orders of magnitude in 90 years if you include vacuum tubes

The parker solar probe cost 1.5 billion USD. Assuming your anti-matter collector is as expensive as that (which is very generous), the startup costs of the collector would be better spent creating 750kg of antimatter in a lab.

Even if we only get 1 leap in tech in the next 30 years, the cost of the spacecraft to capture flares would pay for 150 grams of antimatter. Enough for whatever engine you can imagine.

With solar flare frequency varying from several per day to 2-per-month over its 11 year cycle, 750kg of antimatter would take several years to collect naturally even if you could capture every single flare and every single gram - which is pretty unrealistic to expect from orbital mechanics. You may be able to capture 1 in 10 using orbital manoeuvring, you're looking several decades to make similar quantities.

It will probably be cheaper and faster to make it in a lab.

Cost to produce 1g of Antimatter in a lab:

• 1999 62.5 trillion USD
• 2006 25 billion USD
• In 7 years, The cost per gram has gone down by 1:2500.
• I can find no more recent cost estimates, as we haven't attempted mass production, we're more interested in using CERN to figure out physics than mass produce antimatter. Lets assume that no technological advances have occurred between 2006 and 2020 for sake of simplicity.

Resuming antimatter production research in 2020, and extrapolating that rate of improvement;

• 2020: 25 billion USD
• 2027: 10 million USD per gram
• 2034: 4 thousand USD per gram. $2million / kg.

I'm stopping the extrapolating here (otherwise by 2050 antimatter is cheaper than bananas, and that seems silly), however assuming technology makes 2 similar leaps between now and 2050 that it did between 1999 and 2006, and we're looking at $1 million to make in a lab what you'd capture from a solar flare.

Just to play it safe, lets allow an extra 16 years for those innovations to occur (2050 is a nice round number). We've got economies of scale working in our favour, as well as being able to replace phd physicists with minimum wage technicians.

The parker solar probe cost 1.5 billion USD. Assuming your anti-matter collector is as complex as that (which is very generous), the startup costs of the collector would be better spent creating 750kg of antimatter in a lab.

With solar flare frequency varying from several per day to 2-per-month over its 11 year cycle, 750kg of antimatter would take several years to collect naturally even if you could capture every single flare and every single gram - which is pretty unrealistic to expect from orbital mechanics. You may be able to capture 1 in 10 using orbital manoeuvring, you're looking several decades to make similar quantities.

It will probably be cheaper and faster to make it in a lab.

Cost to produce 1g of Antimatter in a lab:

• 1999 62.5 trillion USD
• 2006 25 billion USD
• In 7 years, The cost per gram has gone down by 1:2500.
• I can find no more recent cost estimates, as we haven't attempted mass production, we're more interested in using CERN to figure out physics than mass produce antimatter. Lets assume that no technological advances have occurred between 2006 and 2020 for sake of simplicity.

Resuming antimatter production research in 2020, and extrapolating that rate of improvement;

• 2020: 25 billion USD
• 2027: 10 million USD per gram
• 2034: 4 thousand USD per gram. $2million / kg.

I'm stopping the extrapolating here (otherwise by 2050 antimatter is cheaper than bananas, and that seems silly), however assuming technology makes 2 similar leaps between now and 2050 that it did between 1999 and 2006, and we're looking at $1 million to make in a lab what you'd capture from a solar flare.

Just to play it safe, lets allow an extra 16 years for those innovations to occur (2050 is a nice round number). We've got economies of scale working in our favour, as well as being able to replace phd physicists with minimum wage technicians.

This crazy cost extrapolation is not without precedent: Transistor costs dropped 12 orders of magnitude in 40 years, and 21 orders of magnitude in 90 years if you include vacuum tubes

The parker solar probe cost 1.5 billion USD. Assuming your anti-matter collector is as expensive as that (which is very generous), the startup costs of the collector would be better spent creating 750kg of antimatter in a lab.

With solar flare frequency varying from several per day to 2-per-month over its 11 year cycle, 750kg of antimatter would take several years to collect naturally even if you could capture every single flare and every single gram - which is pretty unrealistic to expect from orbital mechanics. You may be able to capture 1 in 10 using orbital manoeuvring, you're looking several decades to make similar quantities.

It will probably be cheaper and faster to make it in a lab.

Cost to produce 1g of Antimatter in a lab:

• 1999 62.5 trillion USD
• 2006 25 billion USD
• In 7 years, The cost per gram has gone down by 1:2500.
• I can find no more recent cost estimates, as we haven't attempted mass production, we're more interested in using CERN to figure out physics than mass produce antimatter. Lets assume that no technological advances have occurred between 2006 and 2020 for sake of simplicity.

Resuming antimatter production research in 2020, and extrapolating that rate of improvement;

• 2020: 25 billion USD
• 2027: 10 million USD per gram
• 2034: 4 thousand USD per gram. $2million / kg.

I'm stopping the extrapolating here (otherwise by 2050 antimatter is cheaper than bananas, and that seems silly), however assuming technology makes 2 similar leaps between now and 2050 that it did between 1999 and 2006, and we're looking at $1 million to make in a lab what you'd capture from a solar flare.

The parker solar probe cost 1.5 billion USD. Assuming your anti-matter collector is as complex as that (which is very generous), the startup costs of the collector would be better spent creating 750kg of antimatter in a lab.

With solar flare frequency varying from several per day to 2-per-month over its 11 year cycle, 750kg of antimatter would take several years to collect naturally even if you could capture every single flare and every single gram - which is pretty unrealistic to expect from orbital mechanics. You may be able to capture 1 in 10 using orbital manoeuvring, you're looking several decades to make similar quantities.

It will probably be cheaper and faster to make it in a lab.

Cost to produce 1g of Antimatter in a lab:

• 1999 62.5 trillion USD
• 2006 25 billion USD
• In 7 years, The cost per gram has gone down by 1:2500.
• I can find no more recent cost estimates, as we haven't attempted mass production, we're more interested in using CERN to figure out physics than mass produce antimatter. Lets assume that no technological advances have occurred between 2006 and 2020 for sake of simplicity.

Resuming antimatter production research in 2020, and extrapolating that rate of improvement;

• 2020: 25 billion USD
• 2027: 10 million USD per gram
• 2034: 4 thousand USD per gram. $2million / kg.

I'm stopping the extrapolating here (otherwise by 2050 antimatter is cheaper than bananas, and that seems silly), however assuming technology makes 2 similar leaps between now and 2050 that it did between 1999 and 2006, and we're looking at $1 million to make in a lab what you'd capture from a solar flare.

Just to play it safe, lets allow an extra 16 years for those innovations to occur (2050 is a nice round number). We've got economies of scale working in our favour, as well as being able to replace phd physicists with minimum wage technicians.

The parker solar probe cost 1.5 billion USD. Assuming your anti-matter collector is as complex as that (which is very generous), the startup costs of the collector would be better spent creating 750kg of antimatter in a lab.

With solar flare frequency varying from several per day to 2-per-month over its 11 year cycle, 750kg of antimatter would take several years to collect naturally even if you could capture every single flare and every single gram - which is pretty unrealistic to expect from orbital mechanics. You may be able to capture 1 in 10 using orbital manoeuvring, you're looking several decades to make similar quantities.