History Main / AsteroidMiners

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Milo Clancy, and independent prospector, and the Igrissi Mining Corporation, the big player, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]".

Spectrographic analysis of the asteroids in Earth's solar system show that there's tons of mineral wealth just floating out there waiting for some daring {{Prospector}} with a rocket, a spacesuit, and a drill to go get it. Creators of Science Fiction thus came up with the image of the Belters (also known as Rock Rats, Rockskippers, and so on) as rugged, independent types who prefer the freedom of a one-man spaceship and a life of hard work to living under someone else's rules.

Stories that feature [[RecycledINSPACE miners IN SPACE!]] draw [[SpaceWestern a lot of inspiration from]] (and sometimes directly steal from) stories regarding the various gold and silver rushes of the 1800s.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* ''Animation/BoBoiBoy Movie 2'' features the "Crystal Miners", a group of alien miners who mine crystal from asteroids. One of those asteroids happen to contain [[BigBad Retak'ka]], finally releasing him from being trapped in frozen crystal for 100 years.

* Ray Bradbury's ''Leviathan '99'' is a version of ''Literature/MobyDick'' InSpace where the whales are asteroids, Moby Dick is a sentient comet, and Achab's harpoon is a ten-megaton nuclear warhead.

[[folder: Fan Works ]]
* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'' is a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' fanfic written InTheStyleOf a 1950's sci-fi magazine pulp. In it the Maquis are a militant faction of Belters who are resisting the forced evacuation of the Asteroid Belt, which have been claimed by a hostile alien race on Jupiter. At the start of the story, ''Voyager'' is returning to Earth with Maquis prisoners and several holds full of [[AntiMatter contraterrene]] and other minerals confiscated from the mines.

* ''Film/Moon44'' takes place on an asteroid mining station whose miners are all convicted felons forced to work in the mines as part of their sentences.

* The 1954 film ''Film/RidersToTheStars'' isn't a strict example but worthy of note -- several one-man rockets are sent up in an attempt to get a meteor sample before it enters the Earth's atmosphere.

* Downplayed in ''Film/{{Zygote}}'' as the asteroids have fallen to Earth and buried themselves in the Arctic ice.

** "Literature/TheMartianWay": A colony of miners on Mars are threatened by Straw Environmentalists putting an embargo on water exports from Earth. The miners hatch a plan to send their "scavengers" (pilots tasked with catching used rocket stages for recycling) to grab one of the ice fragments in Saturn's rings, which is only possible because they're psychologically tough enough to endure the long, isolated trip.

* ''Literature/TheRollingStones'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein features the titular family Stone traveling to the Asteroid Belt, where the twins of the family hope to sell food and luxury items to the miners extracting radioactive ores.

** In later stories by Poul Anderson, the various miners of the Asteroid Belt form the Asterite Republic after a full-scale Asterite War Of Independence against the Earth. (The story draws heavily from the US Revolutionary War.)

* In Creator/JerryPournelle's short story "Tinker", the Asteroid Belt is dominated by a consortium of multiplanetary corporations. In a subversion of the genre, [[AuthorAppeal the corporations are the good guys and the rugged, individualistic asteroid miners are the bad guys]].
* ''Literature/HeavyTime'' by Creator/CJCherryh. Mining of the asteroid belt of Earth's solar system is a critical part of the economy in the 24th century.
* ''Gray Lensman'', part of Creator/EEDocSmith's ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series. Kimball Kinnison goes undercover as asteroid miner Wild Bill Williams to infiltrate a Boskonian drug ring.
* ''Wheelers'' by mathemetician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen. In a subversion of the usual 'hotheaded, crude roughneck' style of asteroid miners, all the asteroid mining here is done by ''monks.'' Neo-Zen monks. All the solitude, concentration and slowness of the work makes them uniquely suited to it.
* Asteroid miners don't actually make an appearance in Creator/{{Ken MacLeod}}'s ''Newton's Wake'', but the folk duo play some of their work songs.

* In the Larklight Series by Phillip Reeve, steam punk asteroid miners are hard at work among the asteroids of various planets in our solar systems, complete with minecart tracks tying the asteroids together.

* [[Literature/AcornaSeries Acorna]] is adopted by three asteroid miners when they rescue her escape pod. As she grows up she gets them involved in other adventures, and they eventually decide to split up and settle down to other jobs (and get wives).

** Asteroid miners near Ithor in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' [[DugTooDeep dig too deep]] and find {{S|ealedEvilInACan}}pore. This isn't just an AsteroidThicket, it has giant space slugs, too.

** A short story in ''The Illustrated Star Wars Universe'' describes [[Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy Durga the Hutt's]] efforts to mine the asteroid field in the [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Hoth system]]. His engineers came up with massive automated mining ships that could be loosed to harvest asteroids quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately when the first two Automated Mineral Exploiter vessels were first activated, they immediately detected and proceeded to carve into some fantastically rich sources of metal--[[GoneHorriblyRight each other]]. Quoth the engineers, "We should point out that ''mechanically'', these massive haulers performed flawlessly."

* Creator/FrederikPohl's ''Literature/MiningTheOort'' featured a variation, with a young man from Mars training to become an Oort Cloud miner. In this case, the miners rig chunks of ice with rocket engines and send them towards the inner solar system where they can be steered towards Mars as part of a long-term [[TerraForm terraforming]] operation. The book's central conflict is due to a plot to use one of these ice chunks for a ColonyDrop.

* While asteroid mining isn't seen directly in The ''Literature/{{Nameless War}}'' the industry is briefly mentioned and the Third Fleet's primary base is built onto the side of an Asteroid.

** ''The Nano Flower''. Event Horizon has stolen the design for electron-compression warheads and used them to blast an asteroid into Earth orbit and mine it. The caverns get turned into a space station called New London and the climax of the novel takes place there.

* The ship that lands on Halley's Comet in Creator/DavidBrin & Creator/GregoryBenford novel Literature/HeartOfTheComet isn't just there to mine for valuable material -- it's full of scientists who want to study the makeup of the comet and what it can tell them about the formation of the solar system.

* ''Gold in the Sky'', the 1958 story by Alan. E. Nourse has two brothers investigating the [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident 'accidental']] death of their prospector father in the Asteroid Belt, due to the machinations of the power-hungry mining company Jupiter Equatorial.
* In the {{Literature/Slingshot}} universe, asteroid miners exist in principle (e.g. in the system of Tabriz), but they are not a focus of the story. One of the main characters owns a hollowed-out asteroid, on the other hand, but that is less a case of asteroid mining, and more using it for a hideout. The mined materials do account for a sizable part of his wealth and were used in the build-out of the asteroid.

** In "The Hand Of God", the ''Galactica'' and her fighters attack a Cylon tyllium mine located on an asteroid made almost completely of the stuff.
** And in "Scar", the fleet mines asteroids for metal ores and radioactives vital to the fleet's continual survival.

* Montgomery Scott mentions "working the cargo runs, bringing in supplies and taking out cargo" for Asteroid Miners in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Operation: Annihilate".

** The RPG and the ''Babylon 5 Wars'' tabletop game mention the Belt Alliance, a shipping union that started as an anti-[[SpacePirate Raiders]] association of Asteroid Miners.

* "Shady" Slater is just settling into mining an asteroid when the "Phantom Fleet" is mobilised in ''Machinima/ClearSkies 2''.

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Spaceships'' has a bunch of asteroid mining ships in the Industry book. Asteroid miners also show up in their ''Transhuman Space'' setting.

* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' mineral claims in the belt are a constant point of contention between the Planetary Consortium and the Autonomists, and between Autonomist factions (anarcho-capitalists, capital-A Anarchists, Titan...)

* ''Ishmael'' is MobySchtick InSpace by Australian theatre company Dead Puppet Society. Instead of {{Space Whale}}s, Captain Ahab chases asteroids to mine them, but one turns out to be a case of ThatsNoMoon

* In the first expansion to ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations II'', asteroid mining ships could build and upgrade mining bases in your systems' asteroid belts, boosting production on nearby worlds. Those [[GoddamnBats Goddamn]] SpacePirates love to blow them up.
* ''[[http://www.candystand.com/play/the-space-game The Space Game]]'' is an RTS about mining mineral-rich asteroids and defending your claim from absurdly well-armed pirates. If you replace "pirates" with "aliens", ''Space Station: Frontier'' is this for iOS devices. It may not be free, but it has more options. And better graphics.

* ''VideoGame/{{Celestus}}'' allows you to put mining modules on asteroïds, giving you tons of resources... for a short time.

* A large amount of the "ore" collected in ''VideoGame/ConquestFrontierWars'' comes from asteroids, you can also mine nebulae for gas. You can get both ore and gas from refineries on planets, but if you're not sending out mining ships to hit the asteroid fields and nebulae as well, you're going to get outbuilt by the guy who does.

** [[WretchedHive Omega]] from ''Videogame/MassEffect2'' is an entire city built within the hollowed out remains of a mined-out asteroid. The asteroid was originally a huge chuck of extremely valuable element zero, and as more miners showed up to take it apart, the city grew and the asteroid shrank. When the eezo finally ran out, the city was abandoned to the massive black market and underworld presence that had built up around the mostly-unpoliced city.
** Also in ''Videogame/MassEffect2'', [[spoiler: Legion, a geth]], mentions that they prefer to gain resources this way. It is efficient, as mentioned on the page.
** In the [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 third game's]] ''Leviathan'' DLC, one of the places you visit is an asteroid-mining colony where something strange has happened to the population...

* Oovo IV in ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIRacer'' is a [[PenalColony penal]] asteroid mining colony.
* In peculiar example, the Planetoids map generator for Minecraft creates asteroid-like floating masses which many people usually mine hollow and string minecart tracks between.

* ''VideoGame/WingCommanderPrivateer'' features mining asteroids as one of the basic locations you can visit. Abandoned ones also act as SpacePirate bases, several of them being relevant to the plot.

* ''Videogame/{{Rymdkapsel}}'' has "debris fields" you build extractors next to, to mine minerals.

* ''VideoGame/{{Sinistar}}'' has the player and enemy ships fighting over crystals extracted from "planetoids."
* In VideoGame/SpaceStation13, this is the role of the miner. They mine an asteroid near the station for metals to be used to create various and useful items.
* The backstory for ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' cranks this up to a whole other level: instead of asteroids, massive capital ships are sent out to crack open and mine ''dead planets''. The plot explores what happens when one of these planets turns out to be less dead than originally thought...

* Implied in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' when you build mining stations is asteroid belts. Additionally, it's possible to come across fleets of ancient mining drones that outlived their creators and continue to harvest minerals from asteroids. Depending on your civilization's ethics, you can quietly observe them to try to learn their techniques, attack and tear them apart for resources, or trace their communications to discover some mineral-rich planets. They also pose an early-game danger, as the drone fleets will try to "mine" your ships if you get too close.

* While the base game of ''VideoGame/OffworldTradingCompany'' is about mining on Mars, the Ceres Initiative DLC takes you to Ceres.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', the aggressively expansionist Grineer empire runs many asteroid mining operations. A common stage template is a Grineer ansteroid mine expansive enough to have its own ArtificialGravity and something to hold the atmosphere on the outdoor areas. In [[SpaceZone archwing stages]] you can see some of their smaller mining operations and small asteroids you can break for resources, such as [[GlobalCurrency credits]] (as in actual credit chits that were apparently encased in rock).
* Grappler-archetype ships in ''VideoGame/RingRunnerFlightOfTheSages'' were created by asteroid miners who discovered that a great way to deal with space pirates was to load up on heavy armor (originally designed for protection from collisions and industrial accidents), pull in an opponent using tractor beams (originally meant for grabbing rocks), and then tearing up their target with short-range drills, saws, and cutting beams (originally used for cracking asteroids). Eventually the military noticed the effectiveness of this, and began constructing combat vessels designed from the ground up to use the Grappler style.

* ''{{VideoGame/Zigfrak}}'': The player character is given a mining laser and can often use nearby asteroids to mine for low level loot and materials.

* Literature/WhateleyUniverse: in "Tennyo's Easter", the first problem Tennyo hits in space is asteroid miners: an abandoned mine full of pirates trying to operate the equipment to steal more ore, while being attacked by a different gang of pirates.

* The CreepyPasta ''Section 3'' is all about an asteroid miner recently assigned to a mostly automated ship built for four caretakers, and begins to experience the same unexplained phenomena that [[DrivenToSuicide drove his predecessor to suicide]]. The ship is called a "''Kraken ''-class Meteor Miner," named after its resemblance to a giant squid. A bunch of mechanical tentacles grab and pull asteroids towards a huge drill consisting of three serrated metal plates, and the processing equipment and crew quarters forms the mantle.

* The Lobes from the ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'' episode ''Compassion Crashin'' work in the baking soda mines of an asteroid belt.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThunderbirdsAreGo'': In "Slingshot", a large solar flare causes a malfunction at a mining operation on an asteroid, sending it careening towards the sun and endangering its only crewman.

** ''The Nano Flower''. Event Horizon has stolen the design for electron-compression warheads and used them to blast an asteroid into Earth orbit and mine it. The caverns get turned into a space station called New London and the climax of the novel takes place there.* The novel ''On to the Asteroid'' has a private company send an automated drive system to an asteroid with the intent of shifting the asteroid from its original orbit to a lunar orbit, which would make mining it economically feasible (the premise of the series the novel is in being that expanded privatized space exploration has resulted in spaceflight to low orbit more feasible). Unfortunately, the drive breaks down during a maneuver, causing the asteroid to end up on a collision course with Earth.

* In Sergey Suhinov's ''Shadows on Mercury'', the heroes encounter this sort of miner in the AsteroidBelt. Each miner lives on his or her own asteroid, preferring isolation to companionship. They do, however, band together when the BigBad threatens their way of life. Some of them even [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice]] themselves by putting their one-man craft between the heroes and the BigBad's missiles.

* ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'' plays with the trope, but in this case they're scavengers of a planet's ring system who are looking for alien tech. The protagonist Joshua Calvert starts off this way, and is [[SalvagePirates nearly killed by fellow scavengers]] who have been killing off the competition.
* The novel ''On to the Asteroid'' has a private company send an automated drive system to an asteroid with the intent of shifting the asteroid from its original orbit to a lunar orbit, which would make mining it economically feasible (the premise of the series the novel is in being that expanded privatized space exploration has resulted in spaceflight to low orbit more feasible). Unfortunately, the drive breaks down during a maneuver, causing the asteroid to end up on a collision course with Earth.

* ''The Nano Flower'' by Creator/PeterFHamilton. Event Horizon has stolen the design for electron-compression warheads and used them to blast an asteroid into Earth orbit and mine it. The caverns get turned into a space station called New London and the climax of the novel takes place there.

* ''Ishmael'' is MobySchtick InSpace by Australian theatre company Dead Puppet Society. Instead of {{Space Whale}}s, Captain Ahab chases asteroids to mine them, but one turns out to be a case of ThatsNoMoon.

* ''Animation/BoBoiBoy Movie 2'' features the "Crystal Miners", a group of alien miners who mined crystal from asteroids. One of those asteroids happened to contain [[BigBad Retak'ka]], finally releasing him from being trapped in frozen crystal for 100 years.

* ''Gold in the Sky'', the 1958 story by Alan. E. Nourse has two brothers investigating the [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident 'accidental']] death of their prospector father in the Asteroid Belt, due to the machinations of a CorruptCorporateExecutive.

* ''Gold in the Sky'' by Alan. E. Nourse has two brothers investigating the [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident 'accidental']] death of their prospector father in the Asteroid Belt, due to the machinations of a CorruptCorporateExecutive.

* The CreepyPasta ''Section 3'' is all about an asteroid miner, who's alone on a completely automated ship built for four caretakers, and begins to [[GoMadFromTheIsolation Go Mad From The]] SpaceIsolationHorror. The ship is called a "''Kraken ''-class Meteor Miner," named after its resemblance to a giant squid. A bunch of mechanical tentacles grab and pull asteroids towards a huge drill consisting of three serrated metal plates, and the processing equipment and crew quarters forms the mantle.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': “Your Mother and Mine” Yellow Diamond own several asteroids mines run by Agates. Rhodonite tells Captain Lars that they and the rest of the Off Colors can raid them to find parts to repair their ships nova thrusters so they can make it back to Earth.

* ''Moon 44'' takes place on an asteroid mining station whose miners are all convicted felons forced to work in the mines as part of their sentences.

* The 1954 film ''Riders to the Stars'' isn't a strict example but worthy of note -- several one-man rockets are sent up in an attempt to get a meteor sample before it enters the Earth's atmosphere.

* ''Film/{{Alien}}'': It only really comes up as a background detail, but the crew of the ''Nostromo'' are SpaceTruckers transporting an automated MobileFactory that's used for asteroid mining.

* "Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulton

** "Literature/TheMartianWay": A colony of asteroid miners on Mars are threatened by Straw Environmentalists putting an embargo on water exports from Earth. The miners hatch a plan to grab one of the ice fragments in Saturn's rings, which is only possible because they're psychologically tough enough to endure the long, isolated trip.

* Milo Clancey from the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "The Space Pirates" is an asteroid miner.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Milo Clancy, and independent prospector, and the Igrissi Mining Corporation, the big player, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]".

* There exists a version of ''Literature/MobyDick'' InSpace where the whales are asteroids, Moby Dick is a sentient comet, and Achab's harpoon is a ten-megaton nuclear warhead.
** That would actually be Ray Bradbury's ''Leviathan '99''.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': The Saturnians (who do not actually live on the planet they're named for but instead on the bodies which orbit it) mine the rings of Saturn using abducted slaves from other planets.

* In ''Film/{{Alien}}'', the Nostromo is an ore carrier and processor returning to Earth with a full cargo.

* Montgomery Scott mentions "working the cargo runs, bringing in supplies and taking out cargo" for AsteroidMiners in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Operation: Annihilate".

** The RPG and the ''Babylon 5 Wars'' tabletop game mention the Belt Alliance, a shipping union that started as an anti-[[SpacePirate Raiders]] association of AsteroidMiners.

* ''Toys/RockRaiders'', and the sets it's based on, features a team of miners who are on their way home from another planet when their ship gets hit by an asteroid [[FromBadToWorse and]] ''sucked into a wormhole to another galaxy''. They then have to mine a nearby DeathWorld for Energy Crystals to power their ship and get home. It's essentially a fun {{Troperiffic}} take on the whole AsteroidMiners concept, with some SpaceWestern elements thrown in.

* ''Rocketship Voyager'' is a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' fanfic written InTheStyleOf a 1950's sci-fi magazine pulp. In it the Maquis are a militant faction of Belters who are resisting the forced evacuation of the Asteroid Belt, which have been claimed by a hostile alien race on Jupiter. At the start of the story, ''Voyager'' is returning to Earth with Maquis prisoners and several holds full of [[AntiMatter contraterrene]] and other minerals confiscated from the mines.

* ''Rocketship Voyager'' is a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' fanfic written InTheStyleOf a 1950's sci-fi magazine pulp. In it the Maquis are a militant faction of Belters who are resisting the forced evacuation of the Asteroid Belt, which have been claimed by a hostile alien race. At the start of the story, ''Voyager'' is returning to Earth with a cargo of Maquis prisoners and several holds full of [[AntiMatter contraterrene]] and other minerals confiscated from the mines.