Iridium Mining

If there were asteroids that had enough lithium in it to power everyone's electric cars, there's an argument for bringing it all back to Earth. But I would bet it'll be 100 years at least before this sort of thing becomes anywhere near routine. If you can get to the point where putting serious sized equipment in space is cheap, then the asteroids are a pretty obvious place to go. They're easier to get to the Mars, for sure. You don't have any of the problems of landing, because if you're, there's not enough gravity on an asteroid to make it difficult. And so it seems like the asteroids are just there. It's just the next planet over and then