Line #44 Main/AsteroidMiners


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9	[[quoteright:300:[[Magazine/PopularMechanics https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mikebyers_010469.png]]]]
10
11	->''"Yes, there's no safer occupation than mining. Especially when you're perched on a snowball whipping through space at a million miles an hour!"''
12	-->-- ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}''
13
14	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.
15
16	It should also be noted that asteroid mining is one of the things that make {{Alien Invasion}}s somewhat inefficient. It's much easier to pull materials and resources from a low-gravity asteroid than the huge gravity well of a planet. Not to mention not having to deal with the indigenous population.
17
18	Stories that feature [[JustForFun/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. A notable aspect of this is that, since space is essentially infinite from a human perspective, the main factor that ended the historic gold rushes -- that, eventually, the frontier closes and you run out of easily available deposits to prospect -- isn't a factor for asteroid miners. When your local areas become played out and frontiersman mining is no longer viable, you can always move to another star system and start over.
19
20	Often they will end up processing their ore in a MobileFactory. Can be difficult if they work in an AsteroidThicket.
21
22	Not to be confused with SpaceMines or [[SpiceOfLife Spice Mines]].
23	----
24	!!Examples:
25
26	[[foldercontrol]]
27
28	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
29	* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'':
30	** [[Recap/CowboyBebopSession1AsteroidBlues The first episode]] takes place on a colonized asteroid, Tequila, which is almost certainly a mining enterprise, at least originally.
31	** Abandoned asteroid mines appear in another episode. It goes without saying that humans probably worked in them at some point.
32	* The asteroid Axis in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' was originally a large mining complex, before the remnants of Zeon moved there and repurposed it as a colony. Other ''Gundam'' series will often have large groups of asteroids moved into high Earth orbit (usually in the Lagrange Points) to be used for raw materials in space construction.
33	%%* ''Mighty Space Miners'', a [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard-ish Science Fiction]] OriginalVideoAnimation.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Comic Books]]
37	* A Creator/DonRosa ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'' story, "Attack of the Hideous Space-Varmints", features an alien asteroid miner's hyperdrive beacon accidentally snatching Scrooge [=McDuck=]'s money bin. When the Ducks go in hot pursuit, Scrooge (a veteran prospector himself) makes friends with the Asteroid Miner patriarch.
38	* ''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.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Fan Works]]
42	* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'' is a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' fanfic written InTheStyleOf a 1950s 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.
43	* ''Fanfic/TheVioletDemon'': Tak mentions how she spent years after first being MadeASlave toiling in an asteroid mine, before her repeated escape attempts made her untenable enough that she was sold off to Hrol's GladiatorGames on Areax instead.
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
47	* The introdump sequence of ''Anime/ArcadiaOfMyYouth'' shows a bunch of asteroid miners getting killed.
48	* ''Animation/BoBoiBoyMovie2'' 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 [[SealedEvilInACan being trapped in frozen crystal for 100 years]].
49	* Spacely's Orbiting Ore Asteroid from ''WesternAnimation/JetsonsTheMovie''. The plant is fully automated, so there aren't actual miners, however.
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
53	* ''Film/{{Alien}}'': It only really comes up as a background detail, but the crew of the ''Nostromo'' are {{Space Trucker}}s transporting an automated MobileFactory that's used for asteroid mining.
54	* ''Film/Alien40thAnniversaryShorts'': "Harvest" is set on a spaceship trailing a comet to harvest plasma from its tail. "Ore" has miners on an exoplanet battling a Xenomorph.
55	* The crew of the Protector in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' go down to a planet to find a mining camp, and mistake small aliens for the miners.
56	* The moon Nazis of ''Film/IronSky'' have prepared for their return to earth by building spaceships and stocking Helium-3.
57	* ''Film/{{Moon}}'' takes place on a Lunar Helium-3 mining colony consisting of one man and a robot.
58	* ''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.
59	* ''Film/MoonZeroTwo'' revolves around a plot to crash an asteroid composed of sapphire into the Moon's surface so it can be more easily mined.
60	* The entire point of the setting for ''Film/{{Outland}}'' is the mining of rare radioactives on Jupiter's moon, Io.
61	* Polis Massa base from ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' is a scientific outpost for research and mining operations on its asteroid.
62	* The 1954 film ''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.
63	* {{Downplayed\|Trope}} in ''Film/{{Zygote}}'', as the asteroids have fallen to Earth and buried themselves in the Arctic ice.
64	[[/folder]]
65
66	[[folder:Literature]]
67	[[AC:Examples by author:]]
68	* Creator/PoulAnderson:
69	** "The Rogue" features a tense love affair between the owner of an asteroid mine and an officer in Earth's SpaceNavy.
70	** In later stories by Anderson, the various miners of the Asteroid Belt form the Asterite Republic after a full-scale [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression Asterite War of Independence against the Earth]]. (The story draws heavily from the US Revolutionary War.)
71	* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
72	** "Literature/CatchThatRabbit": The DV-5 unit is expected to automate asteroid mining, so Powell and Donovan are testing him out on an unnamed asteroid.
73	** In "Literature/CChute", it is briefly mentioned that the war between humans and Kloros started over asteroid mining concessions in one system -- an HonorBeforeReason pretext if there ever was one.
74	** "Literature/TheMartianWay": A colony of miners on Mars are threatened by [[StrawCharacter 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.
75	* Creator/PeterFHamilton:
76	** ''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.
77	** ''Literature/TheNanoFlower'': Event Horizon has stolen the design for electron-compression warheads and used them to blast an asteroid into Earth's orbit and mine it. The caverns get turned into a space station called New London and the climax of the novel takes place there.
78
79	[[AC:Examples by work:]]
80	* In the ''Literature/AcornaSeries'', the eponymous 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).
81	* In the ''Literature/AllianceUnion'' story ''Heavy Time'', mining of the asteroid belt of Earth's solar system is a critical part of the economy in the 24th century.
82	* OlderThanTelevision (1898): In ''Literature/EdisonsConquestOfMars'', a fleet of spaceships from Earth on its way to attack Mars halts at an asteroid that is being mined for gold by the Martians.
83	* The ''Literature/EightWorlds'' novel ''The Ophiuchi Hotline'' features ''Oort-cloud miners'' in the outermost regions of the solar system, looking for micro-black holes.
84	* The ''Literature/FormicWars'' novel ''Earth Unaware'' focuses on a Venezuelan clan of free miners whose ship ''El Cavador'' ("the digger" in Spanish) travels through the Kuiper Belt, looking for large enough asteroids to mine. Whenever one is found, the miners use the ship's laser drill to reach valuable pockets, extract them, and load them into unmanned "quickships", which are then sent to the Moon for processing. They are a fairly small clan with a single ship and constantly try to survive in the outskirts of the Solar System, trading with other free miner clans, fighting off SpacePirates, and avoiding mining ships run by {{Mega Corp}}s. As it happens, ''El Cavador'' is the first ship to detect the arrival of [[InsectoidAliens the Formics]]. During the invasion, asteroid miners (both free and corporate) play a key role in thwarting the Formics, since this is prior to the creation of the SpaceNavy, and miners are the only ones with any experience in space combat.
85	* ''Literature/{{Gold in the Sky}}'', a 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.
86	* The ship that lands on Halley's Comet in the Creator/DavidBrin and Creator/GregoryBenford novel ''Heart of the Comet'' 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.
87	* In the ''Literature/KnownSpace'' series, the Solar System is divided between the UN-dominated Earth and the Asteroid Belt, two competing super-powers whose rivalry might at any moment descend into a destructive war. It never does, because as different as their cultures are, and as much as they hate each other, Earth relies on the Belt for raw materials and the Belt relies on Earth for consumer goods and foodstuffs.
88	* In the ''Literature/{{Larklight}}'' series, {{Steampunk}} asteroid miners are hard at work among the asteroids of various planets in our solar systems, complete with minecart tracks tying the asteroids together.
89	* In the ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' story ''Gray Lensman'', Kimball Kinnison goes undercover as asteroid miner Wild Bill Williams to infiltrate a Boskonian drug ring.
90	* Creator/RayBradbury's ''Leviathan '99'' is a version of ''Literature/MobyDick'' JustForFun/RecycledINSPACE, where the whales are asteroids, Moby Dick is a sentient comet, and Achab's harpoon is a ten-megaton nuclear warhead.
91	* Creator/MurrayLeinster's ''Miners in The Sky'' takes place in the ring system around Thotmess, a gas giant in another star system. The ring system is a completely lawless place where "claim jumping" is frequent. Miners, riding small "donkey ships", need to contend with both the harsh natural environment and with fierce human competitors.
92	* Creator/FrederikPohl's ''Mining the Oort'' features 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}}ing operation. The book's central conflict is due to a plot to use one of these ice chunks for a ColonyDrop.
93	* In ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'', the first (live) Motie the humans encounter is an asteroid miner who detects the huge amount of metal in their ships and comes to meet them. They can't communicate with the alien, but one officer sees that his ship is an asteroid miner's ship and makes the connection.
94	* ''Literature/{{Mystery of the Third Mine}}'', a 1953 juvenile by Robert W. Lowndes, involves a tale of crooked claim-jumping. It turns out that the Asteroid Miners' Association is stealing from its own members.
95	* While asteroid mining isn't seen directly in ''Literature/TheNamelessWar'', the industry is briefly mentioned, and the Third Fleet's primary base is built onto the side of an Asteroid.
96	* Asteroid miners don't actually make an appearance in Creator/KenMacLeod's ''Newton's Wake'', but the folk duo play some of their work songs.
97	-->We're the atomic blasters,\
98	The dancing wi' disaster masters,\
99	We're the solar mirror spinners,\
100	Bringing home the steel.
101	* In the novel ''Literature/{{On to the Asteroid}}'', a private company sends 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.
102	* In ''Literature/ThePrideOfParahumans'', parahumans were made to mine asteroids when baseline humans wouldn't sign the legal waivers. After they obtained human rights and became independent many parahumans still pursue that profession. Protagonists Argentum, Aniya, Cole, and Denal are freelance prospectors at the start of the novel.
103	* ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'' features the titular Stone family traveling to the Asteroid Belt, where the twins of the family hope to sell food and luxury items to the miners extracting radioactive ores.
104	* In ''Seetee Ship'' and ''Seetee Shock'', both by Creator/JackWilliamson, the asteroid miners are the sole remaining champions of individual liberty in a solar system dominated by competing tyrannical nations. Their discovery of {{antimatter}} that can be mined (albeit with much danger) helps change things.
105	* In Sergey Suhinov's ''Literature/{{Shadows on Mercury}}'', the heroes encounter this sort of miner in the Asteroid Belt. 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.
106	* In the setting of ''Literature/TheShipWho'', the titular ''City Who Fought'' is actually a SpaceStation mainly dedicated to processing materials mined from local asteroids, though the station is still large enough and boasts enough amenities to qualify as a city anyway.
107	* Creator/MelisaMichaels' ''Skyrider'' series is set in a time of growing tension between the independent asteroid miners and the Earth-based companies they work for or with.
108	* 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.
109	* In ''Literature/StarTrekATimeTo'', this is how the Dokaalan race live, following their planet's EarthShatteringKaboom.
110	* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
111	** Asteroid miners near Ithor in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' [[DugTooDeep dig too deep]] and find [[SealedEvilInACan Spore]]. This isn't just an AsteroidThicket, it has giant space slugs, too.
112	** Anakin and Obi-Wan's investigation into Darth Sidious takes them to an asteroid mining operation in ''Literature/LabyrinthOfEvil''. The Commerce Guild mined out a large asteroid until it was hollow and concave, then set up shop there, using tractor beams to pull in smaller asteroids for dismantling.
113	** 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."
114	** In ''[[Literature/StarWarsRazorsEdge Razor's Edge]]'', the SpacePirates' clearinghouse is in an old large-scale asteroid mine. The place is riddled with passageways both in-use and abandoned, strewn with leftover mining equipment in various states of disrepair. At one point, lacking a quick way back to their ship from a deep cavern, Han hijacks a tunnel borer and simply makes a new passage.
115	* In Creator/JerryPournelle's short story "Tinker", the Asteroid Belt is dominated by a consortium of multiplanetary corporations. In a {{subver\|tedTrope}}sion of the genre, [[AuthorAppeal the corporations are the good guys, and the rugged, individualistic asteroid miners are the bad guys]].
116	* The AntiHero of ''Literature/{{Venus}}'' is a former asteroid miner who lost his wife and his livelihood to the story's BigBad.
117	* ''Literature/{{Wheelers}}'' by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen {{subvert\|edTrope}}s the usual 'hotheaded, crude roughneck' style of asteroid miners; all the asteroid mining is done by ''Neo-Zen monks''. All the solitude, concentration and slowness of the work makes them uniquely suited to it.
118	[[/folder]]
119
120	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
121	* The closing moments of the fourth season of ''Series/The100'' introduces a group of them as a faction on the ground. They were originally prison laborers under the "employ" of the Elegius Corporation. However, they got fed up with the unsafe working conditions, especially after a mysterious sickness started killing them, and turned against the company, with the help of a sympathetic employee.
122	* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
123	** Marcus Cole comes from a family of these, and would still be one if the Shadows had not arrived.
124	** The RPG and the ''Babylon 5 Wars'' tabletop game mention the Belt Alliance, a shipping union that started as an anti-[[SpacePirates Raiders]] association of Asteroid Miners.
125	* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'':
126	** In "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E10TheHandOfGod The Hand of God]]", the ''Galactica'' and her fighters attack a Cylon tyllium mine located on an asteroid made almost completely of the stuff.
127	** And in "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S02E15Scar Scar]]", the fleet mines asteroids for metal ores and radioactives vital to the fleet's continual survival.
128	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Milo Clancy, an independent prospector, and the Igrissi Mining Corporation, the big player, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]".
129	* In ''Series/TheExpanse'', residents of the asteroids, who call themselves "Belters", can ship out as part of ice or asteroid mining crews.
130	* ''Series/{{Lexx}}'''s backstory combines this with DugTooDeep.
131	* The second half of the ''Series/{{Nova}}'' episode [[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/asteroid-doomsday.html "Asteroid: Doomsday or Payday?"]] talks about the possibility of snagging and mining near-Earth asteroids.
132	* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
133	** The eponymous spaceship is a mining ship carrying (and processing) ore on its way back to Earth. At least, that was the plan...
134	** The second episode has Lister singing:
135	---> In a crater, on an ast'roid,\
136	Excavating for a mine,\
137	Lived an old plutonium miner,\
138	And his daughter Clementine.
139	* Montgomery Scott mentions "working the cargo runs, bringing in supplies and taking out cargo" for asteroid miners in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E29OperationAnnihilate Operation: Annihilate]]".
140	[[/folder]]
141
142	%%[[folder:Music]]
143	%%* "Big Ty's Ride" by Joe Bethancourt.
144	%%* "Chiron Beta Prime" by Music/JonathanCoulton.
145	%%[[/folder]]
146
147	[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
148	* ''Beyond Mars'', which ran from 1952 to 1955 in the New York Sunday News, featured asteroid miners as its heroes. Of course, the strip was written by Creator/JackWilliamson, who also wrote ''Seetee Ship'' and ''Seetee Shock'', mentioned above.
149	[[/folder]]
150
151	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
152	* ''TabletopGame/TwentyThreeHundredAD'' has a supplement all about gas giant ring mining, which is just about the same thing.
153	* 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...).
154	* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Spaceships'' has a bunch of asteroid mining ships in the Industry book. Asteroid miners also show up in the ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' setting.
155	* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': Asteroid mining, especially valuable ice asteroids, is one of the primary industries in orbit over Earth after the Coming of the Rifts.
156	* In ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'', the asteroid belt is being mined by both independent operators and 5th Orbit Excavations, with 5OX often pushing independents off their dig sites.
157	* Dwarven rockships in ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}''. Their forges double as the settled asteroid's magical ''propulsion'' system.
158	* The ''TabletopGame/StarDrive'' fluff mentions asteroid mining as a common (though dangerous) source of income, especially in frontier regions.
159	* One of the career options in ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' is "Belter", their name for asteroid miner. Glisten, one of the most important mining colonies in the ''Traveller'' universe. subverts the trope of the wild frontier asteroids, being a cultured and civilized place and the home of important grandees. Several other belts play this straight.
160	* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
161	** Asteroid mining on asteroids big enough to support habitats are a common part of the Imperium. Unfortunately, their isolation makes them perfect locations for genestealers to infest.
162	** The GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/BattlefleetGothic'' includes an alien race called the Demiurg who mostly live in massive [[MobileFactory factory ships]], and tend to survive by asteroid mining. Quite fitting, as they are basically [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarves]] JustForFun/RecycledINSPACE.
163	** [[FunetikAksent Roks]]: The Orks hollow out bigger asteroids and use the metal for their own weapons and vehicles, then strap big engines on them and send them hurtling towards the nearest planet. If it survives mostly intact, there're now a bunch of loot-happy orks on the planet's surface. If not, there's a cataclysmic explosion in the atmosphere and a very big hole in the ground, which the orks find just as entertaining.
164	[[/folder]]
165
166	[[folder:Theatre]]
167	* ''Theatre/{{Ishmael}}'' is MobySchtick JustForFun/RecycledINSPACE, 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.
168	[[/folder]]
169
170	[[folder:Toys]]
171	* ''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 Asteroid Miners concept, with some SpaceWestern elements thrown in.
172	[[/folder]]
173
174	[[folder:Video Games]]
175	* While not a clear example, in ''VideoGame/AlienLegacy'', you can build colonies on asteroids of both belts in the Beta Caeli system. Since making a colony self-sufficient involves building factories and having them perform mining operations, this may fit the trope. However, the asteroids in question are large enough to support at least one full-fledged colony.
176	* This is essentially the entire premise of ''VideoGame/AlphaPrime''. [[MegaCorp The Company]] has people mining an asteroid known as Alpha Prime for [[GreenRocks hubbardium]], and you are heading there to rescue your prospector friend.
177	* ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'' involves shooting asteroids into tinier and tinier chunks. The game doesn’t quite state openly this is for mining, however.
178	* In the lore of ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'', the Detritus Ring, the asteroid belt home of the Rogues, has asteroid mining going on. In particular is Chunk Braxon III which is a major mining base on one of the larger chunks. They produce some semi-rare ore used in manufacturing of robots that gives Minion Robotics (and therefore the LLC) a stake in protecting the colony. Enough wealth flows through this colony that many notable Rogues frequent here as a mainstay of embezzling, theft, and other dips into the LLC cash flow.
179	* You can do this in ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaOnline'', and it is a BoringButPractical way of gaining exp. You can also call in mining ships to handle large planetoids, which give better payoff but force a ProtectionMission on you.
180	* ''VideoGame/{{Celestus}}'' allows you to put mining modules on asteroids, giving you tons of resources... for a short time.
181	* 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 out-built by the guy who does.
182	* 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 ''[[PlanetLooters dead planets]]''. The plot explores what happens when one of these planets turns out to be less dead than originally thought...
183	* The ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' series features asteroids that can be blown apart with a special (and otherwise largely useless) [[UtilityWeapon Mining Laser]] into fragments that can be scooped into the cargo bay and sold. A third-party add-on for ''VideoGame/{{Oolite}}'' adds a ship accessory (which ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' also has) that turns your ship into a MobileFactory of sorts, giving a small chance of extracting higher-value cargo from the fragments. It's a low-risk, low-reward and generally BoringButPractical way of grinding for cash. More adventurous miners can equip mining charges and ''blow an asteroid to pieces'' to reach the highest-value ores inside... provided you don't blow yourself up or crash into a piece of debris on the way in.
184	* In ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity Nova'', you can mine asteroids for water, metal and opals.
185	* A viable, but boring career path in ''VideoGame/EveOnline''. (Newbies are often encouraged by veterans to do ''anything'' other than take up asteroid mining. On the other hand, there's no other reliable source for the tritanium that forms the backbone of the game's player-driven economy.) At least until one of the SpacePirates shows up to ruin your day.
186	* In ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'', Hank did this before becoming a Planet Tamer and still uses modified equipment from that job to hunt the monsters.
187	* Progressing far enough in ''VideoGame/EvolveIdle'' allows the player to set up deep space mining ships to mine materials like iron, iridium, and [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown Elerium]] from the asteroid belt.
188	%%* Featured in ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', where it's not quite so boring as it is in ''VideoGame/EveOnline''.
189	* You can find remains of these kinds of operations in ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', and one random event can allow you to do it yourself.
190	* In the first expansion to ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations II'', asteroid mining ships can build and upgrade mining bases in your systems' asteroid belts, boosting production on nearby worlds. Those {{Goddamn\|Bats}} SpacePirates love to blow them up.
191	* In ''Grounded in Space'' the teenage player character is sentenced to three weeks of asteroid mining by themself as punishment for destroying their mother's kitchen garden by testing a homemade rocket in the family compound.
192	* The lone astronaut from ''VideoGame/HeavenlyBodies'' also has to venture off it in a shuttlecraft to mine nearby asteroids for minerals. The minerals are red, blue, and yellow gems embedded in rocket only collectible by the high-tech drill attached to the shuttlecraft.
193	* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' has asteroids as your main source of resources. The Somtaaw in the Cataclysm expansion start out as just a mining kiith.
194	* About half the asteroid belts in ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'' contain mineral-rich asteroids that can be mined for relatively small amounts of money (equivalent to one to four random encounters).
195	* Mentioned in the Codex of ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
196	** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', almost every single star system containing an asteroid belt has at least one asteroid that you can scan, for easy money and XP. Just put the reticle over it, and press one button... to claim it for the Alliance and mark its location for others to mine. You're a soldier, after all, not a miner.
197	** [[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.
198	** 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.
199	** In [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 the third game]]'s ''Leviathan'' [[DownloadableContent DLC]], one of the places you visit is an asteroid-mining colony where something strange has happened to the population...
200	* In ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'', Mekks was originally one of these. After the original owners left, however, the worker robots gained sentience and created its own peaceful civilization. (The game calls it a planet, but it's really about the size of the dwarf planet Ceres.)
201	* In ''VideoGame/MillenniumReturnToEarth'', you can build and send out ''Grazer''-class mining ships to prospect and mine the Asteroid Belt. Once sent, the Grazers automatically go back and forth between the Moon and the Belt for 5 runs, after which they ask for new instructions. Occasionally, they will come across a particularly valuable asteroid and ask if they should mine it. If you don't reply quickly, the Grazer will move on.
202	* In a peculiar example, the Planetoids map generator for ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' creates asteroid-like [[FloatingPlatforms floating masses]] which many people usually mine hollow and string minecart tracks between.
203	* ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'' has a character called Wally Warpspeed whose occupation is to mine Cosmic Rox (valuable explosive gems). One of the places he mined from is an asteroid.
204	* While the base game of ''VideoGame/OffworldTradingCompany'' is about mining on Mars, the Ceres Initiative [[DownloadableContent DLC]] takes you to Ceres.
205	* ''VideoGame/{{Orbiter}}'' has the Jupiter Mining Company in some TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture scenarios.
206	* In ''VideoGame/OxygenNotIncluded'', you run a mining colony inside an asteroid (which oddly has its own biosphere).
207	* ''VideoGame/ThePerilsOfAkumos'': You're on a space station orbiting a series of asteroids. You meet many miners, some injured.
208	* ''VideoGame/RedFaction'' features a cousin of this trope -- Mars Miners.
209	* Grappler-archetype ships in ''VideoGame/RingRunnerFlightOfTheSages'' were created by asteroid miners who discovered that a great way to deal with SpacePirates was to load up on heavy armor (originally designed for protection from collisions and industrial accidents), pull in an opponent using {{tractor beam}}s (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.
210	* ''VideoGame/{{Rymdkapsel}}'' has "debris fields" you build extractors next to, to mine minerals.
211	* ''VideoGame/{{Sinistar}}'' has the player and enemy ships fighting over crystals extracted from "planetoids".
212	* Asteroid miners in the ''VideoGame/SpaceEmpires'' games take the form of automated robots.
213	* This is roughly a third of the point of playing ''VideoGame/SpaceEngineers'', the other two parts being obtaining the same materials through piracy, and constructing ships from the gained materials.
214	* ''[[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 [[SpacePirates 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.
215	* A common feature in ''VideoGame/SpacePiratesAndZombies''. Around one third of the visitable solar systems are classed as "mining" and generally when you get there the Civ-base is cracking open asteroids to get the [[AppliedPhlebotinum 126th element Rez]]. The player can also crack open asteroids to get Rez, but on a smaller scale. Also, one of the large-hulled ships is a refitted asteroid cracker.
216	* In ''VideoGame/SpaceRangers'', the player can "mine" asteroids by blowing them open with specialized lasers (normal weapons tend to vaporize most of the minerals).
217	* 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.
218	* There are two ways you can do this in ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}''. The first is to build a pillar (or use techs) to go past your planet's atmosphere, where you can find asteroids floating about. The second is to visit an Asteroid Biome. One advantage of this is that it's very easy to see where all the ores and minerals are, making it easy to mine compared to spelunking. Several disadvantages are that the ores are mostly embedded in meteor rock (or worse, magma rock) that makes it very slow to mine, the second is getting an EPP in order to breathe (which you don't get until you can get your hands on some tungsten). In the early beta, you also had to get clothes/armor that provide enough warmth because, well, SpaceIsCold (unless you want to be silly and bring a campfire/nanostove to keep you warm).
219	* ''VideoGame/StarRuler'' allows you to build ships to do this. With the right tech, you can include systems for refining, export and ship construction, creating an independent factory craft.
220	* In ''VideoGame/Stars1995'', any unoccupied planet (or planet occupied by an Alternate Reality race) can be mined for materials, and it is practically necessary to do so.
221	* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has a once-a-day minigame in which you grab a spacesuit and bounce out onto an asteroid to do your own dilithium mining. Both the ore and the refined mineral are then used as one of the game's many currencies.
222	* Oovo IV in ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIRacer'' is a {{penal\|Colony}} asteroid mining colony.
223	* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' you can build mining stations in asteroid belts and some uninhabitable planets. 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.
224	* ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'': Since asteroids make up the majority of habitable ground in the High Wilderness, these make up the majority of miners. Lustrum in particular is absolutely full of them -- with the twist that what they're mining isn't ore or minerals, but time itself in material form.
225	* In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' (with expansions), you can build refinery ships that, besides refueling your fleet, can replenish their supplies by mining the asteroids in the system, if they are present. However, you should be wary of any possible [[{{Precursors}} Morrigi]] asteroid traps. A triggered trap creates a strong gravity field that pulls the ships to it, as well as any surrounding asteroids, to destroy the offenders.
226	* In ''VideoGame/TenMinuteSpaceStrategy'', asteroid fields that appear randomly on the map can be occupied with a fleet of fighters to boost your empire's speed of spacecraft production and facility building.
227	* ''VideoGame/VGAPlanets'': Some versions of the game feature "debris fields" composed of the remains of shattered planets, which have higher mineral concentrations than normal planets but require a little more work to successfully colonize.
228	* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', the aggressively expansionist Grineer empire runs many asteroid mining operations. A common stage template is a Grineer asteroid 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).
229	* ''VideoGame/WingCommanderPrivateer'' features mining asteroids as one of the basic locations you can visit. Abandoned ones also act as bases for SpacePirates, several of them being relevant to the plot.
230	* The ''VideoGame/{{X}}'' series has mining elements, mostly consisting of breaking up asteroids with lasers and then collecting the results.
231	** Until ''X3: Albion Prelude'', if the mining was done remotely, from another sector, it led to an infinitely respawning supply. Placing a mining station on the asteroid is more expensive, but is safer, requires less management, and makes more money in the long run.
232	** There are four wares that can be extracted from Asteroids: Ore, Silicon, Ice, and Nividium. Since Ore and Silicon are required to produce Techs, every player-friendly race sells Mines for them; Ice is only used by Terrans to obtain Water, so they are the only ones who sell the "Ice Harvesting Facility"; lastly, Nividium is the most valued mineral, but the places where you can sell (at only 2 units at a time!) can be counted on the fingers of your hands, not to mention that there aren't any Mines for it.
233	** Nividium mines were added in ''X3: Farnham's Leagacy'', and it is possible to sell Nividium from the player headquarters by the hundreds or even thousands. A good-sized asteroid can yield several hundred, but gathering it all takes several hours even with a dozen or more (fairly expensive) miners active with the proprietary mining software plus a mothership for mobile drop off when full, making it a slow means of making enough money to break even.
234	* ''VideoGame/{{Zigfrak}}'': The player character is given a mining laser and can often use nearby asteroids to mine for low level loot and materials.
235	[[/folder]]
236
237	[[folder:Webcomics]]
238	* Most Belters in ''Webcomic/EscapeFromTerra'', though Ceres and a few other asteroids are developed enough to support populations with different professions. It's also the source of the mineral wealth that the United World is desperate to get their hands on.
239	* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', the Punyverse uses asteroid mining as a common punishment for criminals.
240	* In ''[[http://theoryofeverythingcomics.com/SNE/index.htm Speak No Evil: Melancholy of a Space Mexican]]'', cheap labor is sent to asteroids and planets for mining.
241	[[/folder]]
242
243	[[folder:Web Original]]
244	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUARMF9cf04 This]] FakeMovieRealTrailer by Paul Otaking for an anime ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' movie titled ''Alien: Monday'' has the crew of an asteroid mining ship picking up a far more deadlier cargo.
245	* ''Literature/ArtemisNeo'': The asteroid mining town of West Haven, New Vancouver, Cascadia on the moon Neo Luna II.
246	* In ''WebAnimation/ClearSkies 2'', "Shady" Slater is just settling into mining an asteroid when the "Phantom Fleet" is mobilized.
247	* ''LetsPlay/{{Mahu}}'': In "Second Chance", the Galactic Commonwealth builds its first bases outside their new homeworld in mineral-rich asteroids. Other intergalactic nations do the same, seeking resources to face rivals and increase their power.
248	%%* The original purpose of Cielo in ''Roleplay/NexusGate''.%%ZCE
249	* ''Website/OrionsArm'' has [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/460c39f266c1e an article]] on the topic. It points out the various challenges of mining asteroids, including the lack of atmosphere, the low gravity, the often irregular shape and rapid rotation. To deal with these challenges, special ships such as [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/491ef8728e01e gravity tugs]] (which move asteroids around using gravity) and [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a01e7a9b74f6 Pacman Miners]] (which enclose asteroids to avoid any of the material being lost during the mining process) are used.
250	* 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.
251	* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': In "Tennyo's Easter", the first problem Tennyo hits in space is asteroid miners: an abandoned mine full of [[SpacePirates pirates]] trying to operate the equipment to steal more ore, while being attacked by a different gang of pirates.
252	[[/folder]]
253
254	[[folder:Western Animation]]
255	* The Lobes from the ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'' episode "[[Recap/ThreeTwoOnePenguinsS1E8CompassionCrashin Compassion Crashin']]" work in the baking soda mines of an asteroid belt.
256	* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' consists of Jimmy and his friends going out to an asteroid to find "space rubies" and keeping their find away from thieves.
257	* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': Yellow Diamond owns several asteroid mines run by Agates, as seen in "[[Recap/StevenUniverseS5E13YourMotherAndMine Your Mother and Mine]]". Rhodonite tells Captain Lars that they and the rest of the Off Colors can raid them to find parts to repair their ship's nova thrusters so they can make it back to Earth.
258	* ''WesternAnimation/ThunderbirdsAreGo'': In "[[Recap/ThunderbirdsAreGoS1E9Slingshot Slingshot]]", a [[SolarFlareDisaster large solar flare]] causes a malfunction at a mining operation on an asteroid, sending it careening towards the sun and endangering its only crewman.
259	[[/folder]]
260
261	[[folder:Real Life]]
262	* As of April 2012, there's at least one company out there, called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources Planetary Resources]], that has as its long-term goal the creation of automated mining operations on Near-Earth asteroids. They figure they'll find anything from water, to rare earths to platinum and gold out there, and expect profit returns within 10 years. It probably seems like an insanely risky venture that requires enormous initial investment. ''It is''. Among the company's founders you have Creator/JamesCameron ([[WesternAnimation/SouthPark the greatest pioneer!]]) and [[Website/{{Google}} Larry Page]]. They were bought out by [=ConsenSys=] in 2018, but their space initiatives are still planned to be continued.
263	* As of January 2013 there is also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Industries Deep Space Industries]] which is out to mine asteroids. They also are planning on deep space manufacturing and refueling using these asteroids if things go well enough. They were acquired by Bradford Space in 2019, but plans are still ongoing.
264	* Then there's [[https://www.transastracorp.com/home.html Trans Astronautica Corporation]], which plans to mine asteroids and the lunar poles. For the former, they've come up with a technique called "[[https://www.transastracorp.com/optical-mining.html optical mining]]", which uses concentrated sunlight to break up asteroids and release the water inside.
265	[[/folder]]

Context Main / AsteroidMiners