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Mining a near asteroid would cost less than the moon.
Asteroids are rich in valuable resources
Asteroidal materials are useful for propulsion, building material, life support, agriculture, metallurgy, semiconductors, for solar photovoltaic arrays to power space habitats, pharmaceuticals, and radiation shielding.
There are just a few places on earth where ores are concentrated enough to make mining worthwhile - the good stuff sunk to the earth's core long
ago. Lighterweight minerals with oxygen and silicon rose to the surface to form the crust and upper mantle, whereas the heavier minerals and the
substances which do not bond with silicon or oxygen (such as gold, platinum, and others, including heavy radioactive heat sources) mostly sunk to the core. Iron exists on the surface of the earth bonded to oxygen, silicon and sulfur, but never in its free form.
With asteroids, you get free ore. Good (pure, free) ore requires very little processing.
About half the world's nickel comes from a mining area in Canada called the Sudbury Astrobleme where a giant asteroid impacted Earth long ago.
The Sudbury Astrobleme also produces platinum group metals which are separated from the nickel.
"... a two-kilometer-wide asteroid holds more metal than all the ore mined on Earth since the beginning of civilization."
--usra.edu (pdf)
"Many NEA are easier to get to than the Moon"
--lpi.usra.edu (pdf)
"...they have low delta-V requirements, making some easier to get to than the Moon."
--seds.org
Free metal concentrations in stony meteorites are about 20%. M-type asteroids are over 90% metal. C-type asteroids have 5% to 20% water.
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