[Lvnufcdc]

I just happen to disagree with the conclusion that it's completely unforeseeable that space mining will ever be economically on par with mining in extreme situation on Earth, although I don't think it will happen for decades.
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Althougt it may be possible to draw paralleles between the complexity of space mining with extreme mining on earth, the transport costs are where it will never happen. Fuel cost are going to increase for both, but the increase will always be larger for space mining.

See this is the one place I think a step change in technology can still exist and, probably not for the sake of mining but for space exploration in general or, more likely, war, will be found. You're not going to put a fusion reactor on a haul truck on Earth, but you might put one on a huge payload from space. The economies of scale will become very important, but there'll be 10-12 billion Apple customers by then paying for it...