/sci/ - Science & Math

>Since we're talking about a very long-term aspiration here, I think it would be a good idea to look at demographic trends and imagine the kind of world we'll be responding to when asteroid mining becomes feasible.
>Global fertility rates are declining dramatically, the number of live births peaked in 2012 at over 143 million people, and has since dropped significantly. Fertility rates are also down, live births per woman peaked globally in 1963 at over 5 births per woman, it is currently falling past 2.3, and will be below the generally accepted replacement rate of 2.1 by 2057. By 2100, the global population will be near its maximum, and will begin to decline soon afterwards.
>That prompts the question of what kind of resource demands we will be needing in the long term. For the short term, mining on Earth will have to increase to keep up with the demand of rising populations. Recycling can reduce the amount of new mining that is required, but can't make up for it completely. During this time, asteroid mining will continue to be out of reach.
>After 2100, it may be technologically possible to extract asteroid resources at scale, but will the demand justify it? Populations may begin to decrease just about the time that asteroid mining is able to supplement Earth mining, but at that point it might be more economical to simply recycle used metals that were already mined.