>>14309837Asteroid mining will eventually happen, in the future when certain resources become especially scarce e.g. rare earth metals, phosphorus, then asteroid mining will basically become essential. Probably 100's of years away until that point though. Not really economical to do it yet so I wouldn't hold your breath on asteroid mining.
If starship becomes cheap enough then it could become a profitable asteroid retrieval and return system. It can supposedly land 100 tons on Mars, so roughly let's say it could land with 30 tons of cargo back to earth. If an asteroid is mined and let's say 30% of those 30 tons was gold which would be $400 million for spacex. Considering a starship launch, refuelling costs in space, mining operations, etc, might come to something like 100 million for the mission then it could be really profitable. The amount of work required is immense though so yeah, wouldn't hold your breath
