Asteroid Mining

Asteroids (in our belt) are the most common source of raw material. They can be mined and transported more easily than a similar volume of mass extracted from a planet. Asteroids are very valuable and small ones can contain billions of tons of raw material. For this reason, individual prospectors, small and large development corporations are keen to profit from resources like nickel, iron, platinum and iridium. Water ice and ammonia are also useful.

Asteroids may be collected and moved as a whole towards central processing locations. Gravity tugs can be used to pull them. Small ships may land on the surface and construct thrusters and processors on the surface from material mined there, turning the asteroid itself into a ship which flies to its destination. They may also be broken up into smaller sizes to make mining and collection more manageable.

To move a 3 billion ton iron meteoroid from the asteroid belt to a parking orbit around Earth would require about 8.4 x 1018 J. A mass driver could be used to transport the mountain of metal. Using electromagnetic forces, small pieces of the asteroid could be flung from the driver as reaction mass, propelling the giant mother lode to Earth.

An effective way of performing large-scale mining operations such as mining an entire moon or asteroid belt would be by Von Neumann probes, taking advantage of their exponential growth. They could move on towards neighboring systems forever, seeking out raw materials (extracted from asteroids, moons, gas giants, etc.) making them the most efficient forms of mining operations possible.

Another possibility is that large-scale mining operations on other worlds will be for the benefit of space colonies, not for the earth. Colonists will extract the metals and minerals for their own use, since it might cost too much to transport them to earth. Mining operations in the asteroid belt would become economic only when we have self-sustaining colonies that can use these raw materials themselves.

Working-class humans in the The Expanse that mine asteroids are called the "belters".