Also, how much could NASA really be spending on gold, anyway? They're already spending billions on the rest of their space program.
Somewhat interestingly, gold is actually being actively destroyed in particle accelerators, as it has several properties that makes it a desirable target. As my professor once put it, we finally have the secrets the alchemists only dreamed of, and we use them to destroy gold.
Which properties in particular make it a good target?
Edit: more details from wikipedia[2] suggest starting from either mercury or platinum, although it's all a bit fiddly and isotope-specific. That page has some other interesting facts as well - I'd never really thought of element synthesis as economically practical (and with capital equipment costs, probably still isn't), but tungsten ($30/kg) -> rhenium ($6k/kg) -> osmium ($12k/kg) sounds like a nice business to be in if you can solve the practical problems.
When the balloons all run out, we might want to start making our own helium as well, which has the bonus of being really quite easy to do.
[1] http://chemistry.about.com/cs/generalchemistry/a/aa050601a.h...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#G...
To convert other forms of carbon into diamond, you just need to simulate the conditions in which diamonds are formed (heat and pressure inside the earth.)
To convert other elements to gold, you just have to simulate the conditions in which gold is formed, which, as a heavy element, I'm pretty sure is reproducing a nuclear process that occurs in large stars or possibly supernovae, i.e., something you can reproduce only on Earth only on a very small scale using particle accelerators (or maybe nuclear weapons.)
Fusion only releases energy up to iron. Creating heavier elements consume energy in the reaction rather than releasing it, therefore cannot sustain a reaction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#G...
I think the inside of a star is not perfectly clear-cut. Various elements get created and cycle, with only the energetically-favorable ones accumulating. It's not altogether unlike chemistry.
What little I know of this comes from wikipedia, but I think there are other ways to synthesize elements apart from fission and fusion. Sometimes they simply catch a neutron, and the decay of a particle produces a different element.
Diamonds are a form of carbon, all you need is a different form of carbon and sufficient pressure. Gold is an element, and creating it requires a supernova. Were this not so, if gold could be synthesized, it wouldn't be selling for $1300/ounce.
That's not by itself true. If gold could be synthesized for less than $1300/ounce, then it wouldn't be selling for $1300/ounce. As noted in sibling comments, it is possible to synthesize. It's just unreasonable to actually do so in any meaningful quantity.
You either have gold or you don't. Alchemy tried to convert elements into other elements which is nearly impossible (The sun and other nuclear reactions do this, but not directly to specific elements).