I expect a large chunk /does/ get used in FenSpace, given the massive construction projects various people have posited and the growth of colonies on various planets.
Also, we're not going to be mining out Ceres or Vesta anytime soon; we're talking smaller rocks that are fairly easy to drag into Earth orbit where all the refining takes place. Given the existence of Speed Drives, it's easier to drag the rocks back here, mine them out, and ship them back where they came from, than to try to set up and supply a refining operation in the Belt itself. I doubt any of the Rocks is more than a few kilometers across.
Finally, yes, it would be fairly easy to saturate the market for iron with a few rocks... but there's a lot more out in the Belt than iron. World iron production is ~ 1 billion metric tons per year; the average nickel-iron Rock (as mined by Rockhounds) would produce something like 3-4 times this much. (While this might kill the iron mining industry on Earth, a) a lot of those workers would be moving over to the asteroid work, and b) environmentalists would love it...)
One of the biggest necessities in maintaining any sort of biosphere off-earth is fresh water, and there's a good amount of ice, as far as is currently theorized, among the asteroids (and Saturn's rings, comets, etc, etc, etc).
A large portion contain large quantities of carbon and silicon (very valuable for the Terraforming efforts and other programs).
And, of course, the reason why you get prospectors and the like, rather than big consortiums: precious metals. Small deposits, hard to find, but once found... very valuable.
ETA: Remember that the 2015 figure involves reducing an asteroid completely. Rockhounds doesn't do that; it leaves a big hole with internal subdivisions, suitable for converting into habitations - and the external shell is going to have to be thick enough to keep out radiation, given the lack of a Van Allen belt, so it's going to be, probably, several tens of meters thick...--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Also, we're not going to be mining out Ceres or Vesta anytime soon; we're talking smaller rocks that are fairly easy to drag into Earth orbit where all the refining takes place. Given the existence of Speed Drives, it's easier to drag the rocks back here, mine them out, and ship them back where they came from, than to try to set up and supply a refining operation in the Belt itself. I doubt any of the Rocks is more than a few kilometers across.
Finally, yes, it would be fairly easy to saturate the market for iron with a few rocks... but there's a lot more out in the Belt than iron. World iron production is ~ 1 billion metric tons per year; the average nickel-iron Rock (as mined by Rockhounds) would produce something like 3-4 times this much. (While this might kill the iron mining industry on Earth, a) a lot of those workers would be moving over to the asteroid work, and b) environmentalists would love it...)
One of the biggest necessities in maintaining any sort of biosphere off-earth is fresh water, and there's a good amount of ice, as far as is currently theorized, among the asteroids (and Saturn's rings, comets, etc, etc, etc).
A large portion contain large quantities of carbon and silicon (very valuable for the Terraforming efforts and other programs).
And, of course, the reason why you get prospectors and the like, rather than big consortiums: precious metals. Small deposits, hard to find, but once found... very valuable.
ETA: Remember that the 2015 figure involves reducing an asteroid completely. Rockhounds doesn't do that; it leaves a big hole with internal subdivisions, suitable for converting into habitations - and the external shell is going to have to be thick enough to keep out radiation, given the lack of a Van Allen belt, so it's going to be, probably, several tens of meters thick...--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.