05-19-2013, 08:50 AM
I'm unconvinced that Orion's R&D and construction would have been massively more cost-effective, nor that asteroid mining has a better ROI other Earth based mining or refining R&D. IMHO it will take a lot of advances in automation and in-situ resource allocation to make significant space industry a good investment but such technologies are likely to have a disruptive effect on Earth economics changing the initial parameters of the scenario.