And most people think the asteroid belt looks like Star Wars instead of 4 big rocks and a bunch of dust with a whole lot of nothing in between. > Not to mentio

And most people think the asteroid belt looks like Star Wars instead of 4 big rocks and a bunch of dust with a whole lot of nothing in between. > Not to mention, asteroid hunting will be a lot more effective from the moon anyway But, why? There are science reasons to study them, but not much more. We're not short of any of the compounds they contain. Mining them would take enormous amounts of energy and time because they are way the hell out there. They're too small to provide stability for a manufacturing base. We need to inhabit the Moon and Mars long before we inhabit the asteroid belt.