Opinion: We’re never going to mine the asteroid belt

Space mining won’t get off the ground in any foreseeable future – and you only have to look at the history of civilisation to see why. — Pixabay

Where would science fiction be without space mining?

From Ellen Ripley in Alien and Dave Lister in Red Dwarf, to Sam Bell in Moon and The Expanse’s Naomi Nagata, the grittier end of interstellar drama would be bereft if it weren’t for overalled engineers and their mineral-processing operations.