But I think mining asteroids will be easier than mining the moon. Because on asteroids, everything is right at the surface. There's an asteroid that seems to be just the nickel-iron core of a former planet. That's more nickel and iron than you could ever hope to mine on Earth, and there's no planet around it.
Mining the earth is of course the easiest, because we're already there and there's no space travel or vacuum involved. But it's also very destructive, and once you tackle the space travel and zero-g mining issues, I think asteroid mining is going to be way more profitable. As well as saving our planet.
I can imagine dragging smaller asteroids and letting them "drop" into earth (e.g. attach massive parachutes and then guide them to land on some mining site. Totally sci-fi but I still find it less so than the moon. The reason I don't imagine robots mining the moon is that minerals, as you say, are not readily on the surface, nor is the moon mainly made up of a specific mineral.
I once heard that the one thing we might mine on the moon is He3, once/if we get to that level of fusion power. There's apparently a lot of it, and it's right at the surface.
But the advantage of asteroids is that everything is at the surface.
But I think mining asteroids will be easier than mining the moon. Because on asteroids, everything is right at the surface. There's an asteroid that seems to be just the nickel-iron core of a former planet. That's more nickel and iron than you could ever hope to mine on Earth, and there's no planet around it.
Mining the earth is of course the easiest, because we're already there and there's no space travel or vacuum involved. But it's also very destructive, and once you tackle the space travel and zero-g mining issues, I think asteroid mining is going to be way more profitable. As well as saving our planet.