What Are the Potential Applications of Asteroid Mining for Humanity’s Future?

[killamch89]

As technology advances, asteroid mining seems to be a growing area of interest. What are the potential applications of extracting resources from asteroids for humanity's future? Could it help with resource scarcity on Earth, fuel space exploration, or even support building a sustainable space economy? Are there any risks we should be aware of?

[The Blackangel]

Landing on an asteroid isn’t like it’s portrayed in the movie Armageddon. You have to time it perfectly to do it. Then you also have to have a new kind of spacecraft to haul the results of the mine. Now the vast majority of elements in an asteroid is iron, which is not particularly in high demand. Finding an asteroid to mine is pure dumb luck. The NASA budget for finding asteroids and anything of that nature that could be a threat is practically nonexistent. Armageddon at least got that right. So if they don’t have the means to find any asteroids to mine, how are we to mine it? And who are you going to send to live on it and actually do the mining? Astronauts? Coal miners? And who is going to be able to afford to pay them? The American government is already 13 trillion in debt, so we can’t afford it. Just to emphasize that it’s 13,000,000,000,000. Twelve zeros. And how many people would be willing to leave their homes and families behind to work in space? Potentially for years.

There's no practical way to do this.