Not Mining Asteroids

There is a maxim in technical writing that every formula cuts your audience in half. Everything in spaceflight is based on formulas, so a tradeoff must be made to produce something readable for the non-expert. However, it only takes a few well-known and verifiable facts to demonstrate why asteroid mining is infeasible.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created after the Soviet Union shocked the American government by launching what was essentially a beeper into orbit. ...