Moving on, re.:
“NASA has spent roughly 618 billion 2007 dollars over the last 49 years, roughly the same amount we’ve spent on resource wars in the last 5 years.”

This is incorrect, given that the Iraq occupation alone has, to date, cost at least two trillion dollars.

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-002/$File/rwp_06_002_Bilmes_SSRN.pdf

Doesn’t change your argument, but just wanted to note that.

“To be honest, I don’t think we’re going to reach the technological level to mine asteroids or the moon.
Perhaps we should start a rumor that Al Queda is hiding out in the asteroid belt?”

I would kinda disagree here — in my mind, it’s just a matter of investing money in basic and applied research. NASA has spent roughly 618 billion 2007 dollars over the last 49 years, roughly the same amount we’ve spent on resource wars in the last 5 years. And as inefficient as they are, NASA has accomplished some amazing things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_budget

“Also, let’s not act all smug and try to score points by pretending something silly, like “environmentalists” being some homogeneous mass of clueless rubes.”

I wasn’t aware that I did that. Oops.

Having said that, the prospect of mining asteroids and helium is I think very much appealing. With things like Iron and such it’s not really worth it right now but in twenty years or so the cost of precious metal catalysts like Platinum will have sky-rocketed as many of the new alternative fuel technologies need them. One asteroid rich in that metal could provide as much as the whole earth’s supply as far as some metals are concerned. The trick to be making it to be affordable would be to use some form of robotic probe or imaging technique to be certain which rocks are worth having before making the costly journey out to the asteroid belt.

At present I don’t believe we have the technology to efficiently transport waste out of Earth’s gravity well and then into the Sun, or to transport asteroid-mined raw materials back down to Earth. We get a space elevator built, then we’ll talk about these fabulous solutions.

Also, let’s not act all smug and try to score points by pretending something silly, like “environmentalists” being some homogeneous mass of clueless rubes.

On the other hand, I have to disagree with David in comment #1. If mining asteroids were economically feasible, we’d probably be doing it already. I think the technology isn’t there to do it. Not yet, at least. We still have a long, long way to go.

To be honest, I don’t think we’re going to reach the technological level to mine asteroids or the moon. I think if we want to reach that point, we need to develop enough technology to keep our civilization alive long enough to get there.