Men have killed for it.
Entire cities were built of it.
And armies were formed
to find it.
What is it about the glittering substance known as gold
that has made it the most coveted of all metals?
In ancient times, it was considered so precious,
it was called, "the flesh of the gods."
today, we use gold for everything
from currency to space travel to electronics.
But beyond its mere commercial value,
could gold have a special power?
Something that draws us to it and compels us
to hold it, own it,
even wear it on our bodies?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
shatner: While digging an ordinary utility ditch
just off the coast of the black sea,
a worker unearths a number of
unusual metallic objects from the ground.
When archaeologists later excavate the site,
they discover a vast necropolis
containing the oldest gold artifacts ever found--
dating back to 4600 bc.
Analysis of the elaborate burial ground indicates
that the ancient culture,
known as the chalcolithic varna people,
had a fascination with gold.
Members of the elite were buried
with gold ornaments sewn into shrouds,
and their bodies were placed in graves
laden with exquisite golden artifacts.
6,000 years ago,
neolithic people were fashioning jewelry out of gold.
Now, we can speculate about what attracted them.
It was bright, in probably a very dull world,
and it never corroded.
So it was, in a world in which mortality was ever present--
sickness and want and starvation--
here was something eternal,
never lost its luster,
beautiful, shiny, ageless.
Shatner: While the relics found at varna
are the oldest processed gold objects ever found,
they are certainly not unique.
Throughout virtually all of recorded history,
gold was used in everything from ornamentation
to the creation of sacred objects.
It was cherished above all metals,
especially because of its warm, golden color,
which would, when polished, glow like the sun.
The egyptians took the view that gold was the flesh of the gods,
so therefore, a-- very much a divine material.
It was a very appropriate material
to use in funerary contexts, because
ultimately people-- by being reborn in the next world--
had become gods, to a greater or lesser degree.
And the kings, in particular.
Shatner: The ancient incas also linked gold to the heavens.
They believed it was made from the actual sweat
of their sun god, inti.
Brien foerster: Gold was the most precious metal
of the incas, not because it had any kind of value,
like money, but because it was the sweat of the sun.
The sun was the highest deity of the inca, and therefore,
the sweat of the sun represented
the most sacred possession imaginable.
Shatner: According to stories contained in the hebrew bible,
gold objects were used
not merely to show a symbolic connection to the divine,
but to actually embody the power of god himself.
And to this end, one golden object in particular
became infamous as the most sacred
and most powerful and mysterious of all:
The ark of the covenant.
The ark of the covenant is the central shrine
to ancient israel.
According to the bible, it's a wooden box
made of acacia wood that is overlaid in gold.
Inside of the ark of the covenant
are said to be a couple of things--
the pieces of the ten commandments
that were smashed by moses,
a jar of the manna,
and aaron's rod was also kept in the ark of the covenant.
The idea was that wherever the ark of the covenant went,
that's where the power of god would be.
Shatner: Is it possible
that objects made of gold actually have some sort
of cosmic significance,
a power that literally connected ancient people to something
or someone beyond this world?
But if so, how?
Perhaps the answers can be found by examining
the ancient writings of the first known human civilization:
The ancient sumerians.
Jason martell: The sumerians had a very intricate writing system
called "cuneiform" script.
One of the interesting points about the sumerian culture is
the thousands of tablets and pictograms
they've left us describing their daily lives.
Shatner: For decades,
historians and archaeologists remained frustrated
in their efforts to translate the sumerian cuneiform texts.
But one man believed he had, at last, cracked the code.
After years of exhaustive research
and countless hours spent translating hundreds
of cuneiform tablets,
in 1976, author and researcher zecharia sitchin
published a book entitled, the 12th planet.
In it, he claimed that
contained within the sumerian ancient writings was
a profoundly unique account
of mankind's origins on planet earth.
According to sitchin, the so-called sumerian gods were,
in fact, visitors from the planet nibiru,
who landed on earth in mesopotamia
more than 450,000 years ago.
The anunnaki are among the most mysterious
and powerful beings of myth and sacred tradition.
We're told that the anunnaki had
these enormous life spans of thousands of years.
They came to earth on a special mission
to bring wisdom and also to mine certain materials
from the earth plane itself.
Now one of the interesting proponents
of the story of zecharia sitchin's research
isn't just the anunnaki,
but where the anunnaki actually come from.
The sumerians were very clear
in diagramming all the known outer planets
in our solar system accurately.
However, they included an additional planet
which they called "nibiru."
the anunnaki had damaged their atmosphere.
And by using gold,
they found that they could patch these atmospheric holes--
hence becomes the story of our humanity.
The anunnaki literally came to earth to mine the gold.
And when realizing it was such a toil to do so,
created us as a worker race to do that for them.
Shatner: Zecharia sitchin's hypothesis--
that the anunnaki came to earth to mine gold
and then created humans to perform the task for them--
was both bold and controversial.
If true, it would mean
that mankind's near-obsession
with everything gold had an historical foundation.
But this incredible notion--
that humans were formed to retrieve gold
and present it to the gods--
was not merely a theory created by sitchin.
Believe it or not,
there is archaeological evidence
to suggest that ancient people did exactly that.
Shatner: Believed to be the site of an ancient meteor crater,
this circular-shaped mountain lake was once the site
of remarkable ancient rituals involving gold, centuries ago.
Lake guatavita was within the territory of the muisca
or the chibcha people, which was a chiefdom,
not quite as high a civilization as the incas
or as the aztecs, but a chiefdom
with civilization itself that had a lot of gold.
Shatner: The ruler in the southern half
of the muisca territory was known as the zipa,
who was responsible
for performing the muisca's most sacred ritual.
According to legend, the zipa would float out
on a royal barge in the middle of lake guatavita
to make offerings of gold
to a god believed to live at the bottom of the lake.
Deyermenjian: It was said that the chief, adorned with resin,
and then adorned with gold dust, would then
jump into the water in order to wash the gold dust off.
And that this gold would accumulate in that lake,
and that golden objects, as sacrifices,
would be thrown into that particular lake.
Shatner: In 1911,
an excavation of lake guatavita was led
by british engineer hartley knowles.
Knowles reported that he had recovered some $20,000 worth
of treasure from the bottom of the lake,
including golden artifacts.
Could this remarkable find have offered tangible proof
that ancient peoples mined gold for the purpose
of offering it to their gods, just as sitchin's translations
of the ancient sumerian tablets had indicated?
Perhaps.
But there is another theory--
one that suggests mankind's obsession with gold
is not due to some mere historical connection
that stretches back to our ancient past,
but due to the genuine power that gold possesses--
a power that, if unleashed,
could unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Bill still: Is there any gold in fort knox?
Like its color, its shine, its conductivity,
there is one factor that makes it among the most prized
and valuable of all precious metals.
It is genuinely very, very scarce.
Hart: Now, how much mined gold actually is there in the world?
Considering that we've been mining it
for 6,000 years,
not all that much.
In fact, if you...
Took all the gold ever mined in all of history,
melted it down into a single block,
it would probably cover a tennis court
to a depth of about 30 feet.
That's it. That's the whole total.
Shatner: The reason why gold is so hard to come by
is that every ounce of gold
that has ever been found on earth
did not actually originate on our planet.
Derrick pitts: There is gold in space.
There's no question about it.
In fact, all of the elements that we know of
have been created at the cores of stars.
The more heavy elements are created
in the explosion of a star
when it goes supernova.
All the elements that we know of,
including gold, are made in this fashion.
During the so-called late heavy bombardment period,
some 3.8 to 4.1 billion years ago,
billions of tons of heavy metals
and these rare elements rained to earth through meteorites
and asteroids impacting the planet.
These meteorites are what brought gold, tungsten
and other precious elements to our planet.
Shatner: But while gold is a genuinely rare commodity
on our planet, it is by no means the rarest.
Michael dennin: Platinum has great conductive abilities.
It's rather rare.
It's actually one of the rarest elements we have,
and it's a very useful metal in a lot of what we do.
Shatner: Platinum is considered
to be 30 times more rare than gold,
and yet, it is not unusual for the price of gold
to be higher than that of platinum,
particularly in times of economic uncertainty.
But why?
The origins of this primitive desire
to love and value and treasure gold,
that you can scratch your head over forever.
All we know is that our distant preliterate ancestors
were attracted to it,
and somehow that's come down to us.
Shatner: Perhaps a clue as to why we are so passionately--
and almost illogically-- drawn to gold above all other metals
can be found in our collective tendency
to adorn our bodies with it,
as if it had some kind of magical properties.
The museum of pre-history and early history acquires
a glittering artifact
from an anonymous swiss collector--
a tall, cone-shaped hat,
crafted from a thin sheet of gold
and embellished with dozens of sun and moon symbols.
It is one of four that have been unearthed
at various sites throughout europe,
and is believed by historians to date back
as far as 1000 bc.
What is so important about them is that they indicate
that there was a common culture.
The images on them represent astronomy,
the study of the stars.
They also have complicated mathematical implications,
suggesting a level of philosophical development
that's very advanced for what we thought
was available at that time.
Shatner: German researchers carefully studied the symbols
on the golden hat and concluded they represent
a complex mathematical table,
one that can accurately calculate the long-term cycles
of the sun and the moon.
But how could ancient people
have been able to make such advanced
and highly sophisticated astronomical predictions?
And why was it so important
that they construct this incredible hat out of gold?
Andrew collins: The suggestion is that they belonged
to what might be referred to as oracles--
people that could fall into an altered state
and prophesize-- could come up with statements
relating to the future or otherworldly situations.
There's also this idea that certain metals
resonate or vibrate at certain resonant frequencies.
So if you wear a lot of gold, it gets you connected
to the broader energy fields that we all live in
and move through on a regular basis.
So the golden hats are kind of interesting,
because if gold is something
that actually enhances your connection with energies,
then the wearing of a golden hat,
especially in a conical shape, would tend to amplify
the signal that you were getting from on high.
Shatner: Ancient oracles using golden hats
to receive esoteric knowledge about the universe?
While this may seem like a farfetched notion,
it is just one of many instances
in which ancient cultures believed that gold adornments
held a special power within them
and could bestow that power upon those who possessed
these gold ornaments.
Henry: Throughout history,
people have adorned themselves with gold,
because it symbolizes power, wealth, beauty.
But ultimately, gold is considered
a very good conductor of electricity.
Pitts: Gold is one of the best conductors there is.
The other thing that's very important about it is that gold
is an inert material-- it doesn't react with anything.
And since there's no corrosion,
electrical contacts can remain clean and good.
When you really want the best electrical connectivity,
we always buy our gold-coated connectors.
It's incredibly easy to work with,
you can make it very thin-- gold leafing is something
we're very familiar with--
and you don't need a lot of gold
to get good conductive properties.
Henry: So it's possible that when you're wearing gold,
that you are able to better conduct electricity,
and might possess amazing powers.
Shatner: If you think that the belief in gold objects
having some sort of intrinsic power
is the quaint notion of a bygone era,
well, you'd be wrong.
After all, we still reward
our nation's highest athletic achievements
with gold medals.
Gold jewelry is still more desirable than that of silver
or platinum.
And monarchs still wear gold crowns on their heads.
These are very ancient symbols of power,
and this set off the great scramble for gold,
the great search, the lust,
the desire to have gold.
That's what installed gold
as something that was central to our whole culture
and way of life.
Shatner: Truth is, gold objects have tremendous power
in our world,
perhaps even a more profound power than we've realized.
And there are those who believe that this extraordinary power
can be best appreciated while examining
a bizarre behavioral phenomenon known as...
"gold fever."
shatner: Carpenter james marshall
is building a water-powered sawmill
on the banks of the american river
when he makes an unexpected
and understandably thrilling discovery.
Flakes of gold are floating in the water.
When news gets out, people from all over the world
head for california--
more than 300,000 in just six years.
It is the start of the california gold rush,
a frenzied hunt for an estimated $2 billion
in buried treasure.
Hart: In ten years,
they mined 850 tons of gold.
Now, when we think of a gold rush,
we generally think of what they call in the business
an "area play."
gold is discovered in one place--
people rush to that place to see if they, too, can discover gold.
That's how the california gold rush worked.
Shatner: The california gold rush
is perhaps the most famous example
of what is known as "gold fever,"
a phenomenon which has compelled people and even entire countries
to embark on a quest for gold,
often with only the slightest chance of success,
and sometimes even less than that.
Gold's a very big metal in the human imagination.
They call it the "emotive metal"
in the bullion business,
because it tends to follow emotions.
There is this possibility of winning the lottery,
of getting some extraordinary fortune that was just found.
Symbolically, it may mean even more.
Maybe psychologically, within ourselves,
a sense of self-esteem, or the value of life.
Ganz: You have people willing to go
to every extreme known to man
in order to acquire gold.
You have the roman legion
that traveled throughout the known world
to try and get gold.
You have the crusaders who went
into the near east and the far east,
searching for gold.
You had cortez enslave indian peoples
of latin america in order to mine it,
extract it and send it back to europe.
And, of course, in the 20th century,
you have explorers diving under the sea
in order to get gold that was lost in storms
400 years before.
If you look at what people have done to get gold,
it's everything that you can imagine,
and then some things that you probably can't.
Shatner: It is perhaps safe to say
that throughout history,
there is no limit to the lengths that humans will go
to possess gold.
And if they couldn't acquire it by traditional methods,
there were some who thought that it was possible
to make it artificially,
by means of a strange, mysterious process
known as alchemy.
Dennin: The alchemists, their main goal
was to turn lead into gold.
Lead was viewed as kind of a boring, dull,
not important metal, and gold, of course,
was very valuable and precious.
So you try and get various chemical reactions to occur
and turn the lead into gold.
Shatner: For thousands of years,
kings sought out a magical substance
that could transform common, ordinary metals into gold.
Scientists and alchemists spent centuries trying to invent one.
Over time, this mythical object became referred to
as the philosopher's stone.
A.J. Shaka: The philosopher's stone was an idea that you could have
a magic kind of material do the alchemy.
And the thought that one could do that
is attractive in and of itself.
And if somebody tells you that something exists
and you're smart, like isaac newton,
you might think, "well, I'm smart enough
to figure it out for myself, so I should go looking for it."
and I think that motivated a lot of the early scientists
to get distracted by this idea.
We have a kind of guidance coming from beyond
our ordinary knowing,
a whole series of sacred mysteries involved
in this rather simple form.
The philosopher's stone was this simple material, a stone,
out of which something very powerful can emerge.
It has rich psychological symbolism.
Shatner: A simple stone that can turn anything into gold?
It sounds outlandish.
So outlandish, you might think the philosopher's stone
is a symbol of how the pursuit of gold can cause people
to lose their grip on reality.
But believe it or not,
this is one fantasy that has actually come true.
In an early experiment with nuclear energy,
professor hantaro nagaoka
directs 150,000 volts of electricity
at a mercury isotope isolated in the laboratory.
His goal, to remove a proton from the nucleus of the mercury
and produce a new element: Gold.
Incredibly, the experiment is a success.
Shaka: In prior times,
the idea of turning a base metal like lead into gold
was extremely attractive
because one could make a lot of money by doing that.
The problem was that, at that time,
people didn't even know atoms existed,
or that the number of protons in the nucleus determined
the element and that one would have to change those,
somehow, to do the alchemy.
Shatner: On the periodic table of elements,
gold is element number 79, and mercury is number 80,
which is why removing a single proton from mercury
can actually transform it into gold.
But doing so requires a staggering amount
of both electrical energy and money.
Shaka: You have to get a nuclear reactor
or a particle accelerator or something like that,
and it takes a long time running the reactor
to make even a tiny amount of gold.
If you irradiate for about a day in our reactor,
you make three-tenths of a cent worth of gold.
Since we charge $200 an hour to operate the reactor,
you're pretty far in the hole.
Shatner: Whether it's panning a river
or harnessing the power of a nuclear reactor,
humans are always searching for new sources of gold.
But since creating gold in a laboratory
is not yet economically feasible,
maybe it's time we ask ourselves
how much gold has already been mined
and how can we acquire a fresh supply?
Perhaps the answer lies behind the sealed doors
of the largest gold depository in the world, fort knox.
Shatner: U.S. Treasury secretary steven mnuchin
and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell
visit the united states bullion depository for an inspection.
They are part of the first civilian delegation to lay eyes
on the country's gold bullion reserves in more than 40 years.
But curiously, the media is prohibited from the event,
which starts to raise more questions than answers.
Powell: The depository at fort knox
is a symbol of perhaps america's greatest secret.
Uh, you are more likely to obtain
from the united states government the blueprints
for the construction of a nuclear weapon
than you are to obtain any accurate,
detailed accounting of the disposition
of the united states gold reserve.
Still: Is there any gold in fort knox?
That's a good question, and the government
certainly hasn't been helpful in providing the answer.
One would think that there would be
some sort of accountability.
But there's substantial evidence
that the government is hiding something.
Shatner: By law, the u.S. Treasury
operates fort knox under the direct orders
and supervision of the president of the united states.
And not only does the treasury print money, collect taxes
and enforce trade agreements,
it also oversees america's most precious commodity, its gold.
Powell: Militaries will pack
their pilot's survival kits with gold coins,
not with paper currency,
because gold is the universal money.
And its value determines the value of government currencies.
Gold's value also, uh, profoundly influences
interest rates, uh, and the price of government bonds.
This is the primary reason why governments
have always tried to control the price of gold.
The gold price is the determinant of the value
of all capital, labor, goods and services in the world.
There is nothing else.
Shatner: As of 2020, the united states claimed
to have more than 8,000 tons of gold.
Worth trillions of dollars,
it is the single largest holding in the world.
Not entirely surprising, since there was a time,
in 1933, when u.S. President franklin d. Roosevelt
made it illegal for american individuals
to own the precious metal.
Ganz: In 1933,
america nationalized its gold.
In essence, it stole it from the american people.
It required them to turn in all the gold that they had.
Paul urbhans: This was franklin roosevelt
bringing us out of the depression.
He gathered up gold coins and other gold that people owned
and melted them down into little gold bricks
that weighed 27 and a half pounds each.
Once he acquired all the gold in the country,
he doubled its value.
You could do that when you own it all.
Ganz: Overnight, the gold went from $20.67 an ounce
to $35 an ounce.
The greatest robbery in history wasn't
the mere confiscation, it was revaluing the gold
after it was confiscated.
The difference is, the government had the profit,
not the individual people.
And that was the way that the new deal attempted
to jumpstart the economy.
Shatner: Prior to this time,
every american dollar was backed up by gold.
It even said so right on the currency:
Payable to the bearer in gold.
But now, with america in the grip of the great depression,
the government couldn't take a chance that foreign governments
wouldn't trade currency for coin
and make off with america's gold supply.
In less than two years,
fdr had consolidated the single greatest concentration of wealth
in modern history.
And to house most of it,
he constructed the country's strongest fortress--
fort knox.
The federal government is taking no chances.
This is the people's gold supply,
and they intend for it to stay there.
There's a military unit at fort knox
that is at all times responsible
if any attack was made on the gold vault.
And they're available all the time around the clock.
If you violated the security and got into the vault,
then no way you could get out of there.
You know, the reality of the situation is,
I don't think that anybody would ever try
to break into that building to steal the gold,
because it would take an incredible operation
to get that out of there, and the guards used to tell me,
"you'll get in, but you'll never get out alive."
shatner: If someone was fortunate enough
to make it inside fort knox, they would encounter a maze
of 21,000 cubic feet of granite and concrete,
and more than 1,400 tons of steel.
Underneath the first floor is the gold vault,
whose door weighs several tons and is 21 inches thick.
To unlock it requires multiple treasury officials,
each with a unique, secret combination.
Once inside, the vault is divided into individual cells,
said to measure ten feet by ten feet,
and reportedly stacked from floor to ceiling
with gold bars.
But while no one would argue that it's not important
to keep america's gold safe,
are all of these precautions really necessary?
Or do they serve another, more extraordinary purpose?
Urbhans: It's what you don't know
that's more important than what you do know,
as far as the gold vault is concerned.
And there's been various myths and rumors over the years
which have added to that... Secrecy.
Shatner: One of those rumors suggests
that after president richard nixon removed the u.S. Dollar
from the international gold standard in 1971,
the gold in fort knox was all but sold off.
During the 1960s,
when charles de gaulle was prime minister of France,
he told other countries, "if you owe me money,
pay me in american dollars."
and then he would turn those american dollars in for gold.
That probably caused the biggest drain
of gold out of the bullion depository.
The u.S. Gold reserve was being depleted,
and in 1971, president nixon decided
that we could not afford
to keep losing our gold this way,
and, basically, he repudiated the obligation
of the united states to redeem its dollars for gold
to foreign countries.
And since 1971,
the u.S. Dollar has not been explicitly backed
by any particular weight of gold.
Shatner: But how much of america's gold supply was left?
Rumors that fort knox had been steadily drained of gold
for decades began to spread,
and an anxious american public demanded to know:
Did president richard nixon
pull america off the gold standard
because the vault at fort knox was actually...
Empty?
Ner: Director of the u.S. Mint, mary brooks,
leads a carefully-selected group of members of congress
and news media on a half-hour tour of the fort knox vault.
(indistinct chatter)
its purpose: To prove to congress,
and the american public,
that the gold at fort knox is, in fact, still there.
Ganz: We arrived by bus, to drive up bullion blvd,
aptly named.
And as you approach the depository, you see signs
that warn that federal officers inside
are authorized to shoot to kill,
and that admission is absolutely forbidden.
We went down from the first floor
on by an elevator, went down
to the lower level where the gold is actually stored.
And as we got off the elevator,
we just walked in right next
to the vaults themselves,
the cells full of gold.
Shatner: The delegation was ushered into one
of the smallest compartments-- vault 13--
and directed not to approach any of the other cells.
The thing that stands out to me is just walking in
and seeing all this gold
from floor to ceiling and realizing its value.
And we had an opportunity to pick it up
and feel it and make sure it was gold, and, uh,
it was amazing to me.
Ganz: There's nothing
that was as breathtaking
as having the seal cut on that door,
the vault door open,
and the floodlights from the television
and from the still cameras, flashbulbs popping,
going off the gold.
Simmons: Well, they opened up the bullion depository.
But what they did was they opened pandora's box.
Everybody saw a bunch of bars stacked up in a room,
and then immediately started saying,
that's probably all there was,
and what you're looking at is probably fake.
So, all they did was create a bigger problem.
Shatner: Why had the visitors been shown only one cell?
And why was access to certain corners
of the vault complex denied?
Over time, photos taken during the event
began to circulate in newspapers and magazines.
But rather than reassure skeptics,
as the u.S. Treasury had hoped, still more questions arose.
Some even questioned the quality of the gold based on its color.
Others suggested that-- according to photos taken
at the event while the gold was weighed on a scale--
the bars didn't weigh 27.5 pounds as reported,
but less than 22 pounds.
Of course treasury came out with a press release and said
"oh, well, it was just some cheap scale,
and so the scale was inaccurate."
but if you magnify the photograph,
you see that it was not a cheap scale.
It was a standard issue u.S. Postal scale.
Shatner: Most intriguing of all was the possibility
of a secret vault-- one hidden not only from visitors that day
but one whose very existence is denied,
even now.
There is this famous picture of mary brooks taken
by an ap photographer saying "look, all the gold's here."
however, the room that they showed
was gold vault number thirteen.
And if you just do a simple, napkin-like calculation
of how many bars you see, and,
uh, there are about a million ounces of gold in that room.
And yet, the latest treasury figures
from the treasury website show
that there are 150 million ounces of gold in fort knox.
So it would take 150 of those gold vault thirteens.
So clearly, something's amiss.
Shatner: Can americans ever know for sure
how much gold is in fort knox?
Or whether most of the gold has been sold off, or used
as collateral to finance our national debt?
Powell: Secret things are done with that gold reserve.
That gold reserve is the... It's public property.
It's the property of all the people of the united states.
And the things that are done with it are meant
to undertake secret policies
without any accountability to congress
and the people of the united states.
That's objectionable.
Ganz: I can tell you that when I was on
the congressional inspection tour,
there was gold in fort knox.
But knowing that the gold was there
in September of 1974 doesn't mean
that it's still there today.
Shatner: One thing is certain.
Something of value is being heavily protected
inside fort knox.
And either it's the vast amount of fabled gold bars
that serve as the contents
of the world's greatest treasure fortress, or
it's the disturbing secret
that the vault is really empty.
But according to some experts,
it hardly matters, because they claim
that the largest collection of gold exists,
not in a vault on earth,
but somewhere else.
Somewhere literally
out of this world.
Shatner: Nasa announces a new venture
with the trans astronautica corporation.
The goal? To develop technology
for a special mining operation
in outer space.
We incorporated transastra in 2015 when we saw
that spacex and elon musk
and jeff bezos and other entrepreneurs
were developing low-cost, really effective ways
to get into orbit.
Woman (over radio): Ignition. Lift off.
Sercel: Once we have rockets that can get into orbit inexpensively,
then it makes sense to start building
real industries in space.
And one of the first industries is asteroid mining.
Shatner: In the near future,
transastra and other companies
intend to mine asteroids
for valuable minerals, including gold.
But why asteroids?
Why not here on earth?
According to studies compiled by the u.S. Geological survey,
there are 57,000 tons of mineable gold on earth
that have not yet been excavated.
But with a global production rate of an estimated
3,300 tons per year, that would mean
that in less than 20 years,
there won't be any gold left on our planet to find.
So, if you want to acquire more gold in the future,
we will have to look for it
among the stars.
Sercel: Precious metals
that we really value on the earth,
things like gold and platinum--
they're called "precious metals"
because they're not around much.
Question is, where are they?
The answer is: Asteroids.
A lot of the asteroids are still in their pristine form
from how they first formed
at the beginning of the solar system.
You get a typical asteroid, a few hundred meters in diameter,
it will have more of those rare earth elements
than have been mined on earth in all of human history.
The asteroid belt could provide for the needs
of our civilization for many centuries,
maybe thousands of years into the future.
Hart: Explorers are always looking for new gold sources.
And it was a search for gold that ultimately led
to the discovery of america.
Gold has been there for a long time, central to our culture.
Gold has been money since 635 bc.
So, I guess the short answer to the question:
"why do we like gold?" is
because we always have.
Are we actually running out of gold on this planet?
Well, there are some who believe
that one day, perhaps in the not too distant future,
we might have to replace it with something else
like platinum or palladium.
Or maybe,
as mankind continues its exploration of the universe,
we will find vast new sources of gold
on asteroids or neighboring planets,
and we will have a limitless supply of the glittering metal
whose mysterious power over us has so far remained...
Unexplained.
Captioning provided by a+e networks