Asteroid mining has been suggested for a long time now, interesting to see that we're taking careful steps into a new infancy of trade, grabbing resources from the outside and bringing it back (Just like the Europeans discovering the Americas harvesting resources such as hides, furs, metals, exotic animals back to the European countries to sell).
Whilst this is all great news and so on, but the problem is, is that we are harvesting more than what use we are making of it.
Best not to get your hopes up about asteroid mining "fixing" the economy. Regardless how rare the ores are, as it would be hoarded by (usually) a private company.
Even if more jobs are made. Even though you'd have atleast 10-50 astronauts being employed, most of it would be computerised and done by machines.
In order to effectively to return the ores, as they will obviously be heavy, you'd need either of the 3 things;
1) Return the ores through small containers to give a constant supply of the materials returning to Earth.
2) Landing being assisted by other air vehicles, so if the bulk of resources is returning, you'd have air vehicles to assist it to land safely.
3) Space elevators. Space elevators can be very effective both for going in and out of space, however the amount of resources needed to construct one would be enormous, and the project would take years to successfully complete it.
A way to (repeatedly) launch into space, you'd need to use maglev launching systems.
It would launch small cargo ships to return to the mining site to take the cargo load and return to earth.
Garry's Mod
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