[ have read some essays on the topic over the last ~40 years, but nothing rigorous or recent. ]
We’re quite a ways from being able to get there cheaply enough, with cheap and robust enough autonomous machinery (it’s probably not going to be recovered or sent to the next location after it’s identified an attachment point and mined what it can reach) to make it work.
And that’s separate from the problem of getting it safely to earth—I can imagine a two-part process for that—unmanned return rockets which get it to earth orbit, and then retrieval devices to get it to orbital processing plants (which are also decades away). Use in orbit is obvious. Refinement to a purity that makes it feasible to get to earth is also likely.
[ have read some essays on the topic over the last ~40 years, but nothing rigorous or recent. ]
We’re quite a ways from being able to get there cheaply enough, with cheap and robust enough autonomous machinery (it’s probably not going to be recovered or sent to the next location after it’s identified an attachment point and mined what it can reach) to make it work.
And that’s separate from the problem of getting it safely to earth—I can imagine a two-part process for that—unmanned return rockets which get it to earth orbit, and then retrieval devices to get it to orbital processing plants (which are also decades away). Use in orbit is obvious. Refinement to a purity that makes it feasible to get to earth is also likely.