[marktwain]

The importance of this story is that it blows out of the water the narrative that we are limited to resources on Earth, and are therefore running out.

That narrative depends on the assumption that we never go outside of Earth to obtain the massive amount of resources that exist in space.

[ichabod1]

We can’t have nice things because we have to spend all our monies paying off the natives down here.

[socalgop]

We’d need to engineer a space elevator and a lot of other tech before that becomes feasible. The question is how we survive until then.

[Ozark Tom]

It’s not the presence of the materials, but the energy to process them into a usable form. That is the justification behind seeking a sufficiently enriched ore that enables a mining operation—the energy investment of all the processes.

If not for copper mining also producing silver as a by-product, silver would be properly valued at $90 per troy ounce, the cost of a dedicated silver mine’s operation.

[zeugma]

The importance of this story is that it blows out of the water the narrative that we are limited to resources on Earth, and are therefore running out. That narrative depends on the assumption that we never go outside of Earth to obtain the massive amount of resources that exist in space.

Absolutely. If we're going to survive as a species, we're going to have to make use of the resources the Lord placed in our immediate neighborhood. Sadly, the biggest problem with actually exploiting these resources, other than the technical issues of doing the actual work of course, is that there is currently a treaty signed on to by most nations that says that these resources are the property of "mankind" or some such blather. The idea being that any profits would have to be divided amongst the various and sundry nations of the earth, not the people who actually take the risk and harness the resources. It's similar to the Law of the Sea treaty that we (the U.S. still hasn't signed onto yet. The Law of Space treaty will destroy any attempt to gather the resources of the asteroids, at least until it is done away with.

We could easily end the practice of 'strip mining' on this planet if we brought one of these mineral rich asteroids into a lunar orbit (I wouldn't recommend a solar orbit for obvious reasons). The Lagrange points would probably be good choices as well. Of course, the "environmentalists" will never sign on for this, because what they are really opposed to is capitalism.