Just as the population on Earth is growing, the strain on the planet's resources continues to increase each day. Although ecologists do assert that we haven't reached the extreme limit yet, we can't ignore the fact that Earth only has a finite amount of resources. It is necessary to start planning for the inevitable now and it may sound surprising but no other alternative is as promising as space resources.
Asteroid mining aims to acquire natural resources from all these extra-terrestrial objects including asteroids and other minor planetary bodies floating around in our solar system. Hollywood has already presented images of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck as two well know asteroid miners; however, asteroid mining isn't at all science fiction. Asteroid mining is soon to become a reality, and there's a good reason for it.
According to a report published on NASA's official website, the mineral wealth that can be mined out from the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter is equivalent to 100 billion dollars for each person on Earth at present. It may be a lot of wealth, but nothing's more important than the fact that this means a lot of resources.
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