"Call me naive, but exactly *which* minerals are so expensive and useful
that it's worth dragging them out of one gravity well and into another, rather than digging them up at home?"
Indeed.
Musk view on Mars mining was it's uneconomic even if the product was tonne pallets of Crack.
I think he's a bit pessimistic on this. It might be possible to compete for some products if the transport costs were dirt cheap.
The only thing I could come up with for this to work was a solar driven mass driver (only works during the day, so no storage needed) with on orbit collection by a string of solar sail transports.
It would have to be the full refined product, not just raw ore.
And frankly it still sounded hare brained even by my standards.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
