The Twilight's PeakTRAVELLER
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Belt Mining

The process of extracting useful minerals and other substances from asteroids. Asteroids fall into three basic categories for mining purposes: Nickel Iron: Nickel-iron asteroids are reasonably dense, high-grade sources of metals, and are also useful to the shipbuilding industry as hull material. Carbonaceous: The most common asteroid type, and also that with the lowest value. The best markets for such rocks are space colonies and largeistations which make use of the various useful elements which can extracted from them. Ice chunks: Made up of frozen volatiles, including methane, water, etc. Hence, these "dirty snowballs" are a source of hydrogen fuel, and so support "ice miners". The main markets are starports and space stations which cannot, for one reason or another, use more convenient sources, such as oceans or gas giants. None of these types are particularly valuable, and will never make a miner rich. However many asteroids, especially nickeliron types, contain rare minerals, platinum, lanthanum, etc. Occasionally, an asteroid may be valuable for scientific, or even aesthetic, purposes. Finally there are the products of civilisations, from the week old wreck to the treasure trove of the Ancients.