Justin, I think you better check your facts sir. I want to agree with you, and we are moving in the right (capitalist) direction. But in reality most (but not all) of the funding for these private space companies has come from NASA funding (which was taxpayer money of course). NASA did do something radical and beneficial--instead of putting their entire budget into developing a single NASA vehicle, they sliced off a lot of that to create "seed funding" for multiple companies. That was a major catalyst for where we are today.
If you can correct me on any point there I'll be glad to get smarter, but that's my knowledge of it. FWIW, I've worked in aerospace for about 20 years and I wrote the book "How To Be a Rocket Scientist." :-)

Moon mining for everything, absolutely, JOBS,and MORE jobs.
Divide and Conquer is what they do.
Vote VETERAN someone that puts America before ANY party we come from ALL back grounds.
No double standards put DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

Assuming that the collectivists don't put a stop to it we will see a burgeoning off world economy. SpaceX will eventually get their reusable rocket right and orbital and sub-orbital joy rides will be replaced by viable commercial ventures in space. There are people alive today that will see the extensive colonization of the Moon and Mars and probably the first interstellar missions'.

please keep it up -- this choir loves it!!! -- j
.

King George thought he could control the American colonies. Inintially he could, but eventually the cost was too high. it will depend on the cost just as with any form of slavery. Government may opt for mechanical "slaves" instead, or governments may not be the entities with the most to gain in space. The ones with the most to gain often accept greater risk.
"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams

(But I am preaching to the choir again;^)

Justin Mohr is spot on correct! The private sector will be much more of a change agent for mining resources on asteroids. There are trillions of dollars worth of resources on these celestial objects and the private sector will be the lynchpin for bringing this new found wealth to us.

It will be a game changer for all of the inhabitants of earth being that the resources are vaied and abundant.

Go SpaceX

hmmmmmmmmm ... I fear that the process of moving
humanity into space will be government-controlled, and
as a direct result, will be an exotic form of slavery. . many
would love to go into space, as an alternative to feeling
trapped by society's pressures here on earth. -- j
.

Miles round parachutes to slow the decent and dozens of expendable robotic blimps to position the landing?
I think it safer and more economic to advance robotic tech to make robotic mining in vacuum a reality. Then robotic sorting and separation of materials, robotic use of concentrated solar power to form and manufacture space based foundries, labs, and low gravity habitats. The faster this becomes a reality the sooner humans will taste liberty again.
Any process that merely brings more material, regardless of value, down the gravity well will continue the concentration of wealth and power, and suppress much of humanity's genius.

beam me up...ready to go...

Only because we still stubbornly cling to the expensive notion of doing it all from Earth. If we could get past that blind spot we would realize that bootstrapping Mars for all of that is literally tons cheaper.

You could bootstrap a Mars colony and the mining operations cheaper and more efficiently than doing it all with The geocentric view/plan. It is sad to me how we've regressed over a couple hundred years to where we essentially view Earth as the center of the solar system again.

now, if we could robotically retrieve small asteroids
and park them carefully in some worthy spot on earth
where we could harvest the rare metals ... but what if
we missed with a retrieval and hit a populated area? -- j
.

as the economy tanks so do they.
it is foolishness not to heed Ayn Rand.

Thanks for the link...will listen.
Resources are abundant in creation (the cosmos if you prefer) and only the free market can figure out how to take advantage of it.

As always, I would ask for "Wide Scope Accountability" in spite of 110 thousand books sold...it's still not a household term yet.

Eventually, as technology progresses, we will be able to mine the solar system. That's the future. Earth's supply of elements is finite, so asteroid and other planet digging looks inevitable. How it is handled is a question that is not even on the table as yet. There is no doubt that if America goes back to being a Capitalist economy, there will be a battle between the government and private enterprise. If on the other hand, America becomes another People's Republic, then all bets are off. It is doubtful if there would even be any attempt to harvest space rocks.

Space is under maritime law, unless on a nationally owned vessel, which is why space is the future for private businesses with large resources, access to capital, and technical talent.

Sierra Nevada Corporation, AeroJet, SpaceX, and the Bezos company all fit that description. Without bureaucrats, what would have taken NASA 50 years to do is going to be more like 10 or 15. I don't agree with much from Obama, but getting the government out of the rocket building business will ultimately be a good thing.

You prime that pump with government contracts, which he did, now half of their space launches are commercial satellites and it's a lot cheaper than the Air Force doing it at Vandenberg, which was the old route into space.

The Air Force should be doing spy satellites and defense platforms, that's it.

Lol, private industry is already going to space, the government doesn't do it anymore, only by hitching a ride with the Russians, and now on contracted Space X and other flights (three companies). Space X just landed the same rocket back on the pad after going to space, no splash down, etc, the ultimate for mining.

Why would you send a human, it's a long way to the asteroid belt, that will all be done on decade-long me ssions by robots.

Both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are doing this, they will be there by 2023 or so.

Don't believe everything you read in Ayn Rand, Tesla, Solar City and PayPal (Elon Musk) and Amazon (Jeff Bezos) are doing just fine.

Not true at all, everything in the universe beyond hydrogen is made from previous generations of stars and novae. The fusion process inside of a star cooks hydrogen into helium, as it ages and runs out of hydrogen, then carbon, iron, and so on.

Everything that is in the earth can be found in asteroids. The light rocky ones break up quickly in our atmosphere, the heavier ones sometimes make it to the surface.

Elements are going to be found, just as in nature - silver, gold, etc. dispersed though, not in veins as we have here because that is formed by flowing water and volcanism.

What you wouldn't find are diamonds or other gemstones, those are made from heat and pressure in the earth.

The earth was made from the same swirling cloud of star stuff that the other planets and asteroids were though, it may have been in heavier concentrations inward toward the sun and lighter outward (hence the gas planets), but doubtful, gravity pulls on all masses equally.

Iridium is an exotic metal that is pretty much only found on meteors that hit the ground for example. We don't find gold because it would vaporize from the temperature of re-entry. Once we harvest in space, it will all be there.

What a waste of time to consider.
With current administration and their cohorts called the congress all mining in the usa will come to a halt so why spend any time let alone money to try to mine what is on asteroids when we aren't mining it any longer on earth. When the economy comes to a standstill who will there be to make the machines that will get humans into space. What a joke.

With the burgeoning commercial space companies, and the dramatic reduction in the cost of space access developing, the space industry is in the early stage similar to what happened to the aviation industry after getting the government mail contracts. As NASA and other government entities shift gears to ordering contracted delivery of payloads instead of paying for development of new launchers, the industry is free of excessive government oversight.

Most of the near term capitalist activity will continue to be delivery of payloads to near-Earth orbit. Asteroid mining will develop as in-space infrastructure needs demand, as it's much cheaper to find the materials you need "out there" than ship them up from our home planet.

Even precious metals and gems will not pay the cost of mining them in space and returning them to Earth, but minerals that can make it possible to manufacture facilities and hardware for space based habitats will be in demand.

Before that, NASA repurposed itself to Global Warming Alarm Central.

Compliance = funding.

Good 'un!

Thanks for reminding me of the name. It wasn't coming to me. And, yes, the consortiums are advancing the potential for this - all without NASA, which has been repurposed to Muslim Outreach (not kidding unfortunately) and climate ideology (it's not science).

I worked for NASA for 40 years and one of the most interesting projects was advanced mission planning. We studied resources on the moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt and while rare earth metals were interesting the most valuable commodity was water. Water in its liquid form is essential to any human activity but it is also bulky and heavy so it is costly to take Earth source H2O to orbit and beyond. Discovery of large quantities of water in near Earth bodies would be a major game changer. Transport of asteroid size "ice bergs" poses a technical challenge but it is not insurmountable. Water also provides the constituents of rocket fuel and oxidizer. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread heavy water would be very valuable but easy access to ordinary water would change the economics of solar system exploration and transport profoundly.

What you describe, are two kinds of skyhook. I agree: if you anticipate a great many lifting trips, the space elevator--a skyhook anchored at the surface, probably at sea or in Ecuador--makes sense. An International Space Elevator Consortium now exists, holding contests and handing out prize money for working prototypes of different parts a project of that kind would need.

The first asteroids to go after, assuming we can realize the value of heavy water, would be the companion asteroids--and any other asteroid that makes close approaches. Whoever goes after them, might be able to collect a fat bounty from enough people who want to buy peace of mind--"the asteroid won't enter our atmosphere and smash our cities." After that, you go after the comets. They're the real prizes--because they're mostly ice.