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EXCERPT:
Beyond Earth, there are abundant resources on the Moon and, more significantly, on asteroids. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter alone is estimated to contain between 700,000 and 1,700,000 asteroids with diameters of at least 0.6 miles. In addition, there are over 30,000 known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and about 2,000 to 3,000 more are discovered each year.
A common objection to asteroid mining is that it would cost too much to transport raw materials from an asteroid to Earth, rendering mining economically unviable. The fact that transporting materials is expensive is partly true, but the argument still misses the point. Experts such as John S. Lewis, who raised the issue as early as 1997 in his book Mining the Sky, argued above all that the raw materials extracted from asteroids should primarily be used in space.
