The original poster hit the nail on the head
magnets":28r4lec3 said:
Is there anything in the solar system (off-Earth) with value sufficient to warrant mining?
This is the central question for establishing any long term presence in space. This includes a Martian colony; it has to be able to export something to pay back the set-up and running costs.
Possibilities:
He3 from the Moon is/was thought to possibly viable lunar export. It is widespread on the Moon, very rare on Earth (the USA is running low on normal Helium, and it has the largest reserves), will become vital for fusion reactors. A downside is it's low density meaning large space craft and it leaks slowly through solid steal .... (Compressing it doesn't help because of the mass of the container goes up, and it is very difficult to liquify).
Energy beamed to the ground. The idea here was that mining the moon and having a permanent space workforce would be the cheapest way of building the solar power stations. The price of clean power would be high enough to pay for it all.
The establishment of our species on a lunar colony,and a Martian colony would be worth the expense as an insurance policy for the survival and continuance of the species.The mining processes developed by those colonies,and the food production would eventually lead to self-sufficiency,which would reduce or eliminate "running costs".There would eventually be methods of transporting and delivering products to and from the colonies which would become extremely lucrative,stimulating investments,and creating vast wealth throughout our solar system.We have to get people to think not only globally,but to envision humanity expanding to all of the habitable sites in our solar system.To do this,we have to abolish war,and redistribute the funds into peaceful,mutually beneficial projects.I say that we begin now.that we each do as much as we can to push the pendulum in the direction it needs to go in order to accomplish this great agenda.
There are several important materials that are "running out" e.g. Platinum, Indium .... see the New Scientist article "Earth's natural wealth: an audit". I found it by going to their web site and searching with "minerals running out".
But:
Like other rare material, as the price goes up new sources are found, recycling starts, alternatives sort. For space mining to be viable then it must become less expensive more practicable than all the earth based alternatives.
Will any of these be valuable enough ????
The product may not be obvious e.g. Tobacco (Virginia etc) and Wool (Australia and New Zealand)