Quote:A 1km M-type asteroid has roughly 2 billion metric tons of metal in it. The Rocks as you've described 'em (between 5-7km across) would easily have 5-10 billion tons of metal each.
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.
Quote:Right, but that's the problem. You're selling directly to Earth, and with seven Space Rocks in five years you've produced enough high-quality iron and nickel to last the mundane market until 2050 at a minimum. Unless you're stockpiling or otherwise not selling on the mundane market, by flooding the market like that you're not just killing the metal mining industry on Earth, you're killing it in Fenspace.
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...)
I mean, hell, mine out Greenwood and selling that metal piecemeal over ten years puts you on the same playing ground as USX or Krupp. More Rocks like that just screws you and everybody else.
Suggestion (take it as you will): Modify the Rockhounds timeline a bit to let the company diversify. They're selling the metal from Greenwood, but at the same time they're converting smaller (~50-100m asteroids) Rocks into habitats (ex: Hidden Asteroid and Franklin Station), doing nitrogen & raw organics mining in the outer system for the terraforming projects, precious metals prospecting, etc.---
Mr. Fnord
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