Is Asteroid Harvesting economic?

Given the approximate technology level of us Humans today.

Is there enough of each material needed by our modern civilization in Asteroids to make this economic? And would the materials be used for stuff in space or brought down to the surface?

Consider the following/take as given:

1. No human is needed to directly supervise the mining process. Engineers came up with a set-and-forget mining facility, which just needs some commands from Home-Control from time to time.

2. It is possible to bring the mining facility to any place in the solar-system. I'm interested in the process of shipping resources around, not setting up the system.

3. Cargo-Vessels can be built in space, but only under direct supervision (Humans need to be around, the perfect space dock needs yet to be built), and it is not necessary that the vessel that transports the cargo to Earth also brings it down to Earth.

To summarize: Does it make sense to start harvesting asteroids in the next 100 years?

posted over 9 years ago

J_F_B_M‭

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