Dear 22nd Century,

All of a sudden, out of the dreams of geeks and the potential of technology, an entire new economy explodes into being.

There are new networks full of new kinds of behavior to be cultivated or exploited. The rising tide of money lifts many startups upwards; some sink. The world is awash in a sense of abundance and fear — this could save us, this could destroy us. Some argue this new economy is saving the planet from the carbon economy. And at the apex of the revolution, a small number of foresighted people with famous names acquire wealth greater and faster than any tycoon in human history.

This is the story of the internet economy in the early 21st century. (Arguably, it’s the story of every great market leap since the railroads). It is also, I confidently predict, the story of the space resources economy in the early 22nd.

The main difference is this: Internet pioneers become billionaires; many, many asteroid mining pioneers will become trillionaires. The early 21st century thinks it’s seen a wealth gap; it ain’t seen nothing yet.

At the words “asteroid mining,” a contemporary reader would likely roll their eyes. We are still decades away from the orbital future where a vast semi-automated operation harvests the bottomless wealth of our solar system — the platinum, the gold, the diamonds, the rare earth metals that lay under layers of dust, there for the taking in ridiculous quantities.

How much, exactly? We’re only just beginning to guess. Asterank, a service that keeps track of some 6,000 asteroids in NASA’s database, prices out the estimated mineral content in each one in the current world market. More than 500 are listed as “>$100 trillion.” The estimated profit on just the top 10 asteroids judged “most cost effective” — that is, the easiest to reach and to mine, subtracting rocket fuel and other operating costs, is around $1.5 trillion.