this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Space
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Just can't see anything like this happening until there's not just workable fusion power generation, but portable versions of that technology.... which at this rate and given the challenges currently facing humanity, pretty doubtful that will ever occur. The costs of equipment delivery, resupply, material recovery and transport would be literally astronomical. There's just no way it makes money.
Why fusion ? A portable fission reactor could do the job.
What would we be mining for that could possibly necessitate and justify the costs of transport (equipment and materials) there and back? Almost any resource would be cheaper to mine on Earth, and the only exceptions would still be so rare as to require gigantic energy inputs.
The advantage to any space-based mining is not to directly benefit industry on Earth, but to help real manufacturing and other industrial scale operations in space. Doing that could lead to massive benefits for ground-based society, especially if we can automate so scaling to use resources beyond the Earth-Moon system became practical.
Sounds a little like starting a pot for chicken stock because you got an invite to an easter egg hunt.
Resource extraction on earth is super dirty and exploitative, so I'm all for automating it and moving it to space as soon as it's commercially viable.