We're locked in an increasingly tense game of Resource Monopoly on Earth while an abundance of materials floats over our heads. The question isn't whether we'll start mining asteroids – it's whether we'll do it before or after the next resource war.

We're locked in an increasingly tense game of Resource Monopoly on Earth while an abundance of materials floats over our heads. The question isn't whether we'll start mining asteroids – it's whether we'll do it before or after the next resource war.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theexpeditionist/p/asteroids-not-earth?r=3a23uv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

I write about tech + humans + philosophy. Farcaster OG. FID 3305 founder of /theindex 

https://linktr.ee/joanwestenberg

I like the piece and want to agree but I think it glosses over the "too expensive" critique a bit too quickly. It's not just a little bit too expensive it's like many orders of magnitude more expensive than obtaining the same minerals on Earth even the rarest and most geographically difficult ones. I think asteroid mining will be very important for humanity but I think the vast majority of those resources will be used to make things in space rather than bring them back to Earth. Like you said though, with the speed of SpaceX iteration and a lot more dedicated R&D money, who knows.