Asteroid mining

**Asteroid mining** is the process of extracting valuable minerals from asteroids instead from the Home's crust. The Homelanders use it as an alternative, when they need rare chemical elements in larger quanities than the planet can provide.

## Overview

Ever since the discovery of space flights, the Homelanders considered a possiblity to gain the nigh-unlimited resources the Universe can provide.

One of the main source of said resources were the asteroids, that have many chemical elements in their crust. Besides, the asteroids themselves are widely distributed in the Homelanders' star system, which implied that the resources they have won't run out for a very long time.

## Rare elements

Asteroids contain a vast amount of rare chemical elements, particulary platinum, tungsten, titanium, nickel and aluminium.

Because the Homelanders' inner struction contains inorganic nanotubes' sheets, such as tungsten and titanium disulfide or alternative chemical compounds that nevertheless use the two aforementioned metals, and these elements are relatively rare in the Home's crust, asteroid mining allows them to get as much as they need.

Since the Homelanders product and use a lot of various grades of steel, they use nickel to make stainless steel to suit their needs and wants.

Catalyst metals, such as platinum, are used for various chemical reactions that are still made when the Homelanders work on certain project, as well in everyday life.

## Environmental concerns

Another reason for asteroid mining is sustainability. When mining of the Home's crust gets out of control, it severely damages the air and land and causes an irreversible harm to flora and fauna, even if planetary prgramming removes a noticable chunk of damage. The Homelanders deem it unnacceptable.

Asteroid mining is used to eliminate the environmental impact of planetary resources extraction. Even extremely abundant chemical elements such as carbon were mined from the asteroids during the construction of the star sphere, where they were used in the forms of graphene and nanotubes.

## Catching and mining

The Homelanders usually have two options of extracting resources from the asteroids: either mining them on the spot and delivering materials to the planet or bringing them at the Home's orbit and build automatic mining plants on them, so the latter would extract and accelerate the resoruces to the desired locations.

Both options obviously have pros and cons, so either is chosed according to the current needs.

To catch and bring asteroids to the required place the Homelanders use various forms of propulsion, combining them in a way that allows the most efficient and fast way to either install automated mines there or to alter asteroids' trajectories so they'd reach Home's orbit.

Another propulsion method uses massive electromagnetic catapults that accelerate catchers with the power of electromagnets within a long tube devoid of air to prevent resistance and friction and increase the maximum speed.

Overall, it could've be called a space industrial revolution, as most of production quickly moved beyond Home's atmosphere. As Homelanders became less and less bound to their planet, space production replaced virtually all planetary industries. But in case of need, materials and finished products could be dropped on the surface with all necessary precautions and preparations.

## Present

The Final Singularity offers other ways to get necessary materials, namely nuclear transmutation combined with traditional molecular machines to create required atoms and assemble them according to current needs, respectively.

Raw material could come mostly from hydrogen and helium, but any matter can be used anyway. It could be chosen only out of convinience, because chemical elements are easier to create out of those that have similar number of protons in their atomic nucleus. Exceptions also could occur here.

Despite the aforementioned, Homelanders still use asteroid and, later planetary mining most of the time. This technology is well-known and requires a fraction of energy compared to nuclear transmutation. The latter is still being developed and explored, though, as advancements in it accelerate its widespread adoption.