Largest piece of Mars on Earth fetches $5.3M at auction

If you are a monopoly producer (which seems fair in this context) you would set the price of the rocks where your marginal revenue equals your marginal demand. Loosely, you’d do a market survey to see what price the market would be willing to pay for a mars rock[0], then figure out your cost structure for bringing back one more kilo of rocks. You’d factor in cost to launch a rocket, fuel for the rocket, astronaut salaries, and don’t forget terrestrial costs like marketing and distribution! If you did a good enough job at predicting supply and demand, you wouldn’t actually care what the price of the product is because you would have claimed all the consumer surplus for yourself :)

To specifically answer the optimal quantity question, the above answer implies that you would keep bringing rocks home until the cost to bring them back is higher than the price you set. To be clear, you could still go out and get more rocks and sell them for less and still make a profit, but you wouldn’t maximize your profit with that strategy. Competitive markets nudge behavior towards providing more product for less profit/cost which is why we love competition.

[0] Planet money did a great podcast on how to actually do this. Here’s a link to a transcript (though listening is probably best): https://podscripts.co/podcasts/planet-money/how-much-for-tha...

Even without tanking the price something tells me there's not a huge market for mars rocks.

The price is high because the rock is unique. Bring back more of them and they will become worthless.

> It had a very noticable, distinct smell.

The smell of people's hands touching it repeatedly?

> “this metal was once a star”

So are you…

A linked article states

> The examination found that it is an “olivine-microgabbroic shergottite,” a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma. It has a course-grained texture and contains the minerals pyroxene and olivine, Sotheby’s says.

And that magma is probably identified by isotopic composition. Similar to how we know that the Moon used to be part of Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite

> These meteorites are interpreted as Martian because they have elemental and isotopic compositions that are similar to rocks and atmospheric gases on Mars, which have been measured by orbiting spacecraft, surface landers and rovers.

IMHO having "fuck you" money, as opposed to wealth, is vulnerable and emotional and therefore ripe for getting rugged, eg. You don't see Warren Buffet or even space enthusiasts like Bezos and Musk in this fray. At least not publicly. There is probably a happy middle between the two though but man I can't imagine being that rich and needy and setting off the Spidey-sense of every scammer within miles of you. Seriously? "Meteor" hunter? Come on, man ...

They were a lot different than other meteorites. Isotope ratios are used to date when the rock solidified and they were found to be younger. Different isotope ratios which are unique and prevalent across different planets were found to be the same as on Mars.

Basically there was a rare set of clustered properties which were very similar to properties of the rocks and atmosphere on mars as tested by our various landers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite

I sure hope you are wrong. It's not in the article.

I think they buy these kinds of things for less philanthropic reasons and more for the same reason that the ultra wealthy invest in art: an asset that never loses and often increases in value. It’s a haven for their wealth. If you can “loan” it to professionals (e.g. a museum) who will take care of it for free, and the public can enjoy it too? It’s a solid PR move as well.

Honestly I'd rather billionaires be connoisseurs of rare curiosities than meddle with national and global politics.

That’s the beauty of being a multi-billionaire. You can do both. I can sit in my office with a giant chunk of mars and try to do decent shit.

They love historical artifacts too. Creating a black market for purloined treasures.

I think I'd put it all in a philanthropic trust and kill myself to repent for accumulating that much wealth, but that is probably just me.

It’d be funny if he bought it then returned it to Mars.