alt Hacker NewsHey I feel your space enthusiasm and would really like to be in space at least once and preferable to the moon, but I don't see how it can be economical for mining for earth. Space mining makes sense to build things in space for further space colonisation, but I guess we will have to invent other reasons to justify it.
(For me exploring space and working towards becoming a multi planet species is justification enough)
it is like for example situation with energy production 30 years ago when solar was expensive and coal was cheap. Yet the solar have been becoming more and more cheap while coal becoming more and more expensive. The same will be with a lot of mining - the cost of it on earth, including environmental costs, will be rising while space mining costs will be falling. It will take time before space mined iron would make economical sense, where is space mining things like previously mentioned iridium, etc. looks to already have economical sense, or very close to it, even today.