Water as Space Fuel: The Real Prize in the Asteroid Frontier
The article argues that the hype of a trillion-dollar asteroid rush overstates profits from hauling metals to Earth, since delivering platinum or gold would flood markets and collapse prices. The more viable economics center on mining water in space to produce rocket fuel and sustain habitats, reducing the enormous cost of lifting mass from Earth. NASA’s Psyche mission is science-focused, not mining, and private efforts like AstroForge face long timelines and funding hurdles; the practical business case is in-space servicing and fueling rather than exporting metals back home.