History Main / AsteroidMiners

* The 1954 film ''Film/{{Riders to the Stars}}'' isn't a strict example but worthy of note -- several one-man rockets are sent up in an attempt to get a meteor sample before it enters the Earth's atmosphere.

** In ''The Nano Flower'', Event Horizon has stolen the design for electron-compression warheads and used them to blast an asteroid into Earth orbit and mine it. The caverns get turned into a space station called New London and the climax of the novel takes place there.

* As of April 2012, there's at least one company out there, called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources Planetary Resources]], that has as its long-term goal the creation of automated mining operations on Near-Earth asteroids. They figure they'll find anything from water, to rare earths to platinum and gold out there, and expect profit returns within 10 years. It probably seems like an insanely risky venture that requires enormous initial investment. ''It is''. Among the company's founders you have Creator/JamesCameron ([[WesternAnimation/SouthPark the greatest pioneer!]]) and [[Website/{{Google}} Larry Page]].
* As of January 2013 there is also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Industries Deep Space Industries]] which is out to mine asteroids. They also are planning on deep space manufacturing and refueling using these asteroids if things go well enough.

* {{Implied|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' when you build mining stations in asteroid belts. Additionally, it's possible to come across fleets of ancient mining drones that outlived their creators and continue to harvest minerals from asteroids. Depending on your civilization's ethics, you can quietly observe them to try to learn their techniques, attack and tear them apart for resources, or trace their communications to discover some mineral-rich planets. They also pose an early-game danger, as the drone fleets will try to "mine" your ships if you get too close.

* In ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity Nova'', you could mine asteroids for water, metal and opals.

* Featured in ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', where it's not quite so boring as it is in ''VideoGame/EveOnline''.

* While asteroid mining isn't seen directly in ''[[Literature/{{Namelesswar}} The Nameless War]]'', the industry is briefly mentioned, and the Third Fleet's primary base is built onto the side of an Asteroid.

* ''Mighty Space Miners'', a hard-ish Science Fiction {{OVA}}.
* The introdump sequence of the pilot of the ''Anime/CaptainHarlock'' series ''Arcadia of My Youth'' (1982) shows a bunch of asteroid miners getting killed.
* Asteroid mines (abandoned ones) appear in one episode of ''Anime/CowboyBebop''. It goes without saying that humans probably worked in them at some point.
** Not to mention that the first episode takes place on a colonized asteroid, Tijuana, which is almost certainly a mining enterprise, at least originally.

* A Creator/DonRosa ''Scrooge [=McDuck=]'' story, "Attack of the Hideous Space-Varmints", features an alien asteroid miner's hyperdrive beacon accidentally snatching Scrooge's money bin. When the Ducks go in hot pursuit, Scrooge (a veteran prospector himself) makes friends with the Asteroid Miner patriarch.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: The Saturnians (who do not actually live on the planet they're named for but instead on the bodies which orbit it) mine the rings of Saturn using abducted slaves from other planets.

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'' is a ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' fanfic written InTheStyleOf a 1950's sci-fi magazine pulp. In it the Maquis are a militant faction of Belters who are resisting the forced evacuation of the Asteroid Belt, which have been claimed by a hostile alien race on Jupiter. At the start of the story, ''Voyager'' is returning to Earth with Maquis prisoners and several holds full of [[{{Antimatter}} contraterrene]] and other minerals confiscated from the mines.

* The entire point of the setting for ''Film/{{Outland}}'' is the mining of rare radioactives on Jupiter's moon, Io.
* ''Film/{{Moon}}'' takes place on a Lunar Helium-3 mining colony consisting of one man and a robot.

* ''Moon 44'' takes place on an asteroid mining station whose miners are all convicted felons forced to work in the mines as part of their sentences.
* ''Film/MoonZeroTwo'' revolves around a plot to crash an asteroid composed of sapphire into the Moon's surface so it can be more easily mined.
* Polis Massa base from ''[[Film/RevengeOfTheSith Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith]]'' is a scientific outpost for research and mining operations on its asteroid.

* The 1954 film ''Riders to the Stars'' isn't a strict example but worthy of note -- several one-man rockets are sent up in an attempt to get a meteor sample before it enters the Earth's atmosphere.
* ''Film/Alien40thAnniversaryShorts''. "Harvest" is set on a spaceship trailing a comet to harvest plasma from its tail. "Ore" has miners on an exoplanet battling a Xenomorph.
* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Film/{{Zygote}}'' as the asteroids have fallen to Earth and buried themselves in the Arctic ice.

* OlderThanTelevision: ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'', a serial novel written in 1898 by Garrett P. Serviss. In the story, a fleet of spaceships from Earth on its way to attack Mars halts at an asteroid that is being mined for gold by the Martians.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'' series, the Solar System is divided between the UN-dominated Earth and the Asteroid Belt, two competing super-powers whose rivalry might at any moment descend into a destructive war. It never does, because as different as their cultures are, and as much as they hate each other, Earth relies on the Belt for raw materials and the Belt relies on Earth for consumer goods and foodstuffs.
* In ''Seetee Ship'' and ''Seetee Shock'', both by Creator/JackWilliamson, the asteroid miners are the sole remaining champions of individual liberty in a solar system dominated by competing tyrannical nations. Their discovery of {{antimatter}} that can be mined (albeit with much danger) helps change things.

** In "Literature/CChute", it is briefly mentioned that the war between humans and Kloros started over asteroid mining concessions in one system. A HonorBeforeReason pretext if there ever was one.
* ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein features the titular Stone family traveling to the Asteroid Belt, where the twins of the family hope to sell food and luxury items to the miners extracting radioactive ores.
* Creator/RayBradbury's ''Leviathan '99'' is a version of ''Literature/MobyDick'' JustForFun/RecycledInSpace, where the whales are asteroids, Moby Dick is a sentient comet, and Achab's harpoon is a ten-megaton nuclear warhead.
* "The Rogue", a short story by Creator/PoulAnderson, features a tense love affair between the owner of an asteroid mine and an officer in Earth's {{space navy}}.
** In later stories by Poul Anderson, the various miners of the Asteroid Belt form the Asterite Republic after a full-scale [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression Asterite War Of Independence against the Earth]]. (The story draws heavily from the US Revolutionary War.)

* In Creator/JerryPournelle's short story "Tinker", the Asteroid Belt is dominated by a consortium of multiplanetary corporations. In a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion of the genre, [[AuthorAppeal the corporations are the good guys and the rugged, individualistic asteroid miners are the bad guys]].
* In ''Heavy Time'', part of Creator/CJCherryh's ''Literature/AllianceUnion'' series, mining of the asteroid belt of Earth's solar system is a critical part of the economy in the 24th century.
* In ''Gray Lensman'', part of Creator/EEDocSmith's ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series, Kimball Kinnison goes undercover as asteroid miner Wild Bill Williams to infiltrate a Boskonian drug ring.
* ''Wheelers'', by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen. In a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion of the usual 'hotheaded, crude roughneck' style of asteroid miners, all the asteroid mining here is done by ''monks.'' Neo-Zen monks. All the solitude, concentration and slowness of the work makes them uniquely suited to it.

* In Sergey Suhinov's ''Shadows on Mercury'', the heroes encounter this sort of miner in the Asteroid Belt. Each miner lives on his or her own asteroid, preferring isolation to companionship. They do, however, band together when the BigBad threatens their way of life. Some of them even [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice]] themselves by putting their one-man craft between the heroes and the BigBad's missiles.
* In the ''Literature/{{Larklight}}'' series by Phillip Reeve, {{Steampunk}} asteroid miners are hard at work among the asteroids of various planets in our solar systems, complete with minecart tracks tying the asteroids together.
* In ''Literature/StarTrekATimeTo'', this is how the Dokaalan race live, following their planet's EarthShatteringKaboom.

* Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/TheOphiuchiHotline'' features ''Oort-cloud miners'' in the outermost regions of the solar system, looking for micro-black holes.
* In the ''Literature/AcornaSeries'', the eponymous Acorna is adopted by three asteroid miners when they rescue her escape pod. As she grows up she gets them involved in other adventures, and they eventually decide to split up and settle down to other jobs (and get wives).
* Franchise/StarWarsLegends:

** A short story in ''The Illustrated Star Wars Universe'' describes [[Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy Durga the Hutt's]] efforts to mine the asteroid field in the [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Hoth system]]. His engineers came up with massive automated mining ships that could be loosed to harvest asteroids quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately when the first two Automated Mineral Exploiter vessels were first activated, they immediately detected and proceeded to carve into some fantastically rich sources of metal -- [[GoneHorriblyRight each other]]. Quoth the engineers, "We should point out that ''mechanically'', these massive haulers performed flawlessly."

* The antihero of Ben Bova's ''Venus'' is a former asteroid miner who lost his wife and his livelihood to the story's BigBad.
* Creator/FrederikPohl's ''Mining the Oort'' features a variation, with a young man from Mars training to become an Oort Cloud miner. In this case, the miners rig chunks of ice with rocket engines and send them towards the inner solar system where they can be steered towards Mars as part of a long-term {{terraform}}ing operation. The book's central conflict is due to a plot to use one of these ice chunks for a ColonyDrop.
* Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''Literature/EarthUnaware'' focuses on a Venezuelan clan of free miners whose ship ''El Cavador'' ("the digger" in Spanish) travels through the Kuiper Belt, looking for large enough asteroids to mine. Whenever one is found, the miners use the ship's laser drill to reach valuable pockets, extract them, and load them into unmanned "quickships", which are then sent to the Moon for processing. They are a fairly small clan with a single ship and constantly try to survive in the outskirts of the Solar System, trading with other free miner clans, fighting off SpacePirates, and avoiding mining ships run by {{Mega Corp}}s. As it happens, ''El Cavador'' is the first ship to detect the arrival of the [[InsectoidAliens Formics]]. During the invasion, asteroid miners (both free and corporate) play a key role in thwarting the Formics, since this is prior to the creation of the SpaceNavy, and miners are the only ones with any experience in space combat.
* In ''Literature/ThePrideOfParahumans'', parahumans were made to mine asteroids when baseline humans wouldn't sign the legal waivers. After they obtained human rights and became independent many parahumans still pursue that profession. Protagonists Argentum, Aniya, Cole, and Denal are freelance prospectors at the start of the novel.
* In ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'', the first (live) Motie the humans encounter is an asteroid miner who detects the huge amount of metal in their ships and comes to meet them. They can't communicate with the alien but one officer sees that his ship is an asteroid miner's ship and makes the connection.
* While asteroid mining isn't seen directly in ''[[Literature/{{Namelesswar}} The Nameless War]]'', the industry is briefly mentioned and the Third Fleet's primary base is built onto the side of an Asteroid.
* Creator/PeterFHamilton
** ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'' plays with the trope, but in this case they're scavengers of a planet's ring system who are looking for alien tech. The protagonist Joshua Calvert starts off this way, and is [[SalvagePirates nearly killed by fellow scavengers]] who have been killing off the competition.
** ''The Nano Flower'': Event Horizon has stolen the design for electron-compression warheads and used them to blast an asteroid into Earth orbit and mine it. The caverns get turned into a space station called New London and the climax of the novel takes place there.
* The novel ''On to the Asteroid'' has a private company send an automated drive system to an asteroid with the intent of shifting the asteroid from its original orbit to a lunar orbit, which would make mining it economically feasible (the premise of the series the novel is in being that expanded privatized space exploration has resulted in spaceflight to low orbit more feasible). Unfortunately, the drive breaks down during a maneuver, causing the asteroid to end up on a collision course with Earth.
* The ship that lands on Halley's Comet in the Creator/DavidBrin and Creator/GregoryBenford novel ''Heart of the Comet'' isn't just there to mine for valuable material -- it's full of scientists who want to study the makeup of the comet and what it can tell them about the formation of the solar system.
* ''Mystery of the Third Mine'', a 1953 juvenile by Robert W. Lowndes, involves a tale of crooked claim-jumping. Turns out the Asteroid Miners' Association is stealing from its own members.
* ''Gold in the Sky'', a 1958 story by Alan. E. Nourse, has two brothers investigating the [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident 'accidental']] death of their prospector father in the Asteroid Belt, due to the machinations of the power-hungry mining company Jupiter Equatorial.
* In the ''Literature/{{Slingshot}}'' universe, asteroid miners exist in principle (e.g. in the system of Tabriz), but they are not a focus of the story. One of the main characters owns a hollowed-out asteroid, on the other hand, but that is less a case of asteroid mining, and more using it for a hideout. The mined materials do account for a sizable part of his wealth and were used in the build-out of the asteroid.
* In ''Literature/TheShipWho'' setting, the titular ''City Who Fought'' is actually a SpaceStation mainly dedicated to processing materials mined from local asteroids, though the station is still large enough and boasts enough amenities to qualify as a city anyway.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''
** In "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E10TheHandOfGod The Hand Of God]]", the ''Galactica'' and her fighters attack a Cylon tyllium mine located on an asteroid made almost completely of the stuff.
** And in "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S02E15Scar Scar]]", the fleet mines asteroids for metal ores and radioactives vital to the fleet's continual survival.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Milo Clancy, an independent prospector, and the Igrissi Mining Corporation, the big player, in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E6TheSpacePirates The Space Pirates]]".
* ''Series/{{Lexx}}'''s backstory combines this with DugTooDeep.

* ''Series/BabylonFive''
** Marcus Cole comes from a family of these, and would still be one if the Shadows had not arrived.
** The RPG and the ''Babylon 5 Wars'' tabletop game mention the Belt Alliance, a shipping union that started as an anti-[[SpacePirates Raiders]] association of Asteroid Miners.
* The second half of the ''Series/{{Nova}}'' episode [[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/asteroid-doomsday.html "Asteroid: Doomsday or Payday?"]] talks about the possibility of snagging and mining near-Earth asteroids.
* In ''Series/TheExpanse'', residents of the asteroids, who call themselves "Belters", can ship out as part of ice or asteroid mining crews.

[[folder:Music]]
* "Chiron Beta Prime" by Music/JonathanCoulton
* "Big Ty's Ride" by Joe Bethancourt.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''Beyond Mars'', which ran from 1952 to 1955 in the New York Sunday News, featured asteroid miners as its heroes. Of course, the strip was written by Creator/JackWilliamson, who also wrote ''Seetee Ship'' and ''Seetee Shock'', mentioned above.
[[/folder]]

** The GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/BattlefleetGothic'' includes an alien race called the Demiurg who mostly live in massive [[MobileFactory factory ships]], and tend to survive by asteroid mining. Quite fitting, as they are basically [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarfs]] [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]

* The ''TabletopGame/StarDrive'' fluff mentions asteroid mining as a common (though dangerous) source of income, especially in frontier regions.
* One of the career options in the sci-fi TabletopRPG ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' is "Belter", their name for asteroid miner. Glisten, one of the most important mining colonies in the ''Traveller'' universe. subverts the trope of the wild frontier asteroids, being a cultured and civilized place and the home of important grandees. Several other belts play this straight.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Spaceships'' has a bunch of asteroid mining ships in the Industry book. Asteroid miners also show up in their ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' setting.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': Asteroid mining, especially valuable ice asteroids, is one of the primary industries in orbit over Earth after the Coming of the Rifts.
* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' mineral claims in the belt are a constant point of contention between the Planetary Consortium and the Autonomists, and between Autonomist factions (anarcho-capitalists, capital-A Anarchists, Titan...).
* Dwarven rockships in ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}''. Their forges double as the settled asteroid's magical ''propulsion'' system.
* In ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' the asteroid belt is being mined by both independent operators and 5th Orbit Excavations, with 5OX often pushing independents off their dig sites.
* ''TabletopGame/TwentyThreeHundredAD'' has a supplement all about gas giant ring mining, which is just about the same thing.

* ''Ishmael'' is MobySchtick InSpace by Australian theatre company Dead Puppet Society. Instead of {{Space Whale}}s, Captain Ahab chases asteroids to mine them, but one turns out to be a case of ThatsNoMoon.

* In the first expansion to ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations II'', asteroid mining ships can build and upgrade mining bases in your systems' asteroid belts, boosting production on nearby worlds. Those {{Goddamn|Bats}} SpacePirates love to blow them up.
* ''[[http://www.candystand.com/play/the-space-game The Space Game]]'' is an RTS about mining mineral-rich asteroids and defending your claim from absurdly well-armed [[SpacePirates pirates]]. If you replace "pirates" with "aliens", ''Space Station: Frontier'' is this for iOS devices. It may not be free, but it has more options. And better graphics.
* A viable, but boring career path in ''VideoGame/EveOnline''. (Newbies are often encouraged by veterans to do ''anything'' other than take up asteroid mining. On the other hand, there's no other reliable source for the tritanium that forms the backbone of the game's player-driven economy.) At least until one of the SpacePirates shows up to ruin your day.
* Also featured in ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', where it's not quite so boring.

* The space RTS ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' has asteroids as your main source of resources. The Somtaaw in the Cataclysm expansion start out as just a mining kiith.
* ''VideoGame/RedFaction'' features a cousin of this trope -- Mars Miners.
* ''VideoGame/{{Orbiter}}'' has the Jupiter Mining Company in some of its TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture scenarios.
* A large amount of the "ore" collected in ''VideoGame/ConquestFrontierWars'' comes from asteroids, you can also mine nebulae for gas. You can get both ore and gas from refineries on planets, but if you're not sending out mining ships to hit the asteroid fields and nebulae as well, you're going to get out-built by the guy who does.
* The ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series has mining elements, mostly consisting of breaking up asteroids with lasers and then collecting the results. Until ''X3: Albion Prelude'', if the mining was done remotely, from another sector, it lead to an infinitely respawning supply. Placing a mining station on the asteroid is more expensive, but is safer, requires less management, and makes more money in the long run.
** There are four wares that can be extracted from Asteroids: Ore, Silicon, Ice, and Nividium. Since Ore and Silicon are required to produce Techs, every player-friendly race sells Mines for them; Ice is only used by Terrans to obtain Water, so they are the only ones who sell the "Ice Harvesting Facility"; lastly, Nividium is the most valued mineral, but the places where you can sell (at only 2 units at a time!) can be counted on the fingers of your hands, not to mention that there aren't any Mines for it.
*** Nividium mines were added in ''X3: Farnham's Leagacy'', and it is possible to sell Nividium from the player headquarters by the hundreds or even thousands. A good-sized asteroid can yield several hundred, but gathering it all takes several hours even with a dozen or more (fairly expensive) miners active with the proprietary mining software plus a mothership for mobile drop off when full, making it a slow means of making enough money to break even.
* Mentioned in the Codex of ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', almost every single star system containing an asteroid belt has at least one asteroid that you can scan, for easy money and XP. Just put the reticle over it, and press one button... to claim it for the Alliance and mark its location for others to mine. You're a soldier, after all, not a miner.
** [[WretchedHive Omega]] from ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' is an entire city built within the hollowed out remains of a mined-out asteroid. The asteroid was originally a huge chuck of extremely valuable element zero, and as more miners showed up to take it apart, the city grew and the asteroid shrank. When the eezo finally ran out, the city was abandoned to the massive black market and underworld presence that had built up around the mostly-unpoliced city.
** Also in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[spoiler:Legion, a geth]], mentions that they prefer to gain resources this way. It is efficient, as mentioned on the page.
** In the [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 third game's]] ''Leviathan'' [[DownloadableContent DLC]], one of the places you visit is an asteroid-mining colony where something strange has happened to the population...

* Asteroid miners in the ''VideoGame/SpaceEmpires'' games take the form of automated robots.
* Oovo IV in ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIRacer'' is a {{penal|Colony}} asteroid mining colony.
* In a peculiar example, the Planetoids map generator for ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' creates asteroid-like floating masses which many people usually mine hollow and string minecart tracks between.
* In ''VideoGame/SpaceRangers'', the player can "mine" asteroids by blowing them open with specialized lasers (normal weapons tend to vaporize most of the minerals).

* ''VideoGame/StarRuler'' allows you to build ships to do this. With the right tech, you can include systems for refining, export and ship construction, creating an independent factory craft.

* ''VideoGame/WingCommanderPrivateer'' features mining asteroids as one of the basic locations you can visit. Abandoned ones also act as bases for SpacePirates, several of them being relevant to the plot.
* You can do this in ''VideoGame/BattlestarGalacticaOnline'' and it is a BoringButPractical way of gaining exp. You can also call in mining ships to handle large planetoids, which give better payoff but force a ProtectionMission on you.
* A common feature in ''VideoGame/SpacePiratesAndZombies''. Around one third of the visitable solar systems are classed as "mining" and generally when you get there the Civ-base is cracking open asteroids to get the [[AppliedPhlebotinum 126th element Rez]]. The player can also crack open asteroids to get Rez, but on a smaller scale. Also one of the large-hulled ships is a refitted asteroid cracker.
* You can find remains of these kinds of operations in ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', and one random event can allow you to do it yourself.
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has a once-a-day minigame in which you grab a spacesuit and bounce out onto an asteroid to do your own dilithium mining. Both the ore and the refined mineral are then used as one of the game's many currencies.
* In ''VideoGame/TenMinuteSpaceStrategy'', asteroid fields that appear randomly on the map can be occupied with a fleet of fighters to boost your empire's speed of spacecraft production and facility building.
* Essentially, the entire premise of ''VideoGame/AlphaPrime''. [[MegaCorp The Company]] has people mining an asteroid known as Alpha Prime for [[GreenRocks hubbardium]], and you are heading there to rescue your prospector friend.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'', Mekks was originally one of these. After the original owners left, however, the worker robots gained sentience and created its own peaceful civilization. (The game calls it a planet, but it's really about the size of the dwarf planet Ceres.)
* The ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' series features asteroids that can be blown apart with a special (and otherwise largely useless) [[UtilityWeapon Mining Laser]] into fragments that can be scooped into the cargo bay and sold. A third party add-on for ''VideoGame/{{Oolite}}'' adds a ship accessory (which ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' also has) that turns your ship into a MobileFactory of sorts, giving a small chance of extracting higher-value cargo from the fragments. It's a low-risk, low-reward and generally BoringButPractical way of grinding for cash. More adventurous miners can equip mining charges and ''blow an asteroid to pieces'' to reach the highest-value ores inside... provided you don't blow yourself up or crash into a piece of debris on the way in.
* In ''VideoGame/MillenniumReturnToEarth'', you can build and send out ''Grazer''-class mining ships to prospect and mine the Asteroid Belt. Once sent, the Grazers automatically go back and forth between the Moon and the Belt for 5 runs, after which they ask for new instructions. Occasionally, they will come across a particularly valuable asteroid and ask if they should mine it. If you don't reply quickly, the Grazer will move on.
* While not a clear example, in ''VideoGame/AlienLegacy'', you can build colonies on asteroids of both belts in the Beta Caeli system. Since making a colony self-sufficient involves building factories and having them perform mining operations, this may fit the trope. However, the asteroids in question are large enough to support at least one full-fledged colony.

* This is roughly a third of the point of playing ''VideoGame/SpaceEngineers'', the other two parts being obtaining the same materials through piracy, and constructing ships from the gained materials.
* ''VideoGame/{{Sinistar}}'' has the player and enemy ships fighting over crystals extracted from "planetoids".
* In ''VideoGame/SpaceStation13'', this is the role of the miner. They mine an asteroid near the station for metals to be used to create various and useful items.
* The backstory for ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' cranks this up to a whole other level: instead of asteroids, massive capital ships are sent out to crack open and mine ''[[PlanetLooters dead planets]]''. The plot explores what happens when one of these planets turns out to be less dead than originally thought...
* In the lore of ''VideoGame/{{Battleborn}}'', the Detritus Ring, the asteroid belt home of the Rogues has asteroid mining going on. In particular is Chunk Braxon III which is a major mining base on one of the larger chunks. They produce some semi-rare ore used in manufacturing of robots that gives Minion Robotics (and therefore the LLC) a stake in protecting the colony. Enough wealth flows through this colony that many notable Rogues frequent here as a mainstay of embezzling, theft, and other dips into the LLC cash flow.
* In ''VideoGame/Stars1995'', any unoccupied planet (or planet occupied by an Alternate Reality race) can be mined for materials, and it is practically necessary to do so.
* {{Implied|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' when you build mining stations in asteroid belts. Additionally, it's possible to come across fleets of ancient mining drones that outlived their creators and continue to harvest minerals from asteroids. Depending on your civilization's ethics, you can quietly observe them to try to learn their techniques, attack and tear them apart for resources, or trace their communications to discover some mineral-rich planets. They also pose an early-game danger, as the drone fleets will try to "mine" your ships if you get too close.
* ''VideoGame/MoshiMonsters'' has a character called Wally Warpspeed whose occupation is to mine Cosmic Rox (valuable explosive gems). One of the places he mined from is an asteroid.
* ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'': Since asteroids make up the majority of habitable ground in the High Wilderness, these make up the majority of miners. Lustrum in particular is absolutely full of them -- with the twist that what they're mining isn't ore or minerals, but time itself in material form.
* Hank in ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' did this before becoming a Planet Tamer and still uses modified equipment from that job to hunt the monsters.
* While the base game of ''VideoGame/OffworldTradingCompany'' is about mining on Mars, the Ceres Initiative [[DownloadableContent DLC]] takes you to Ceres.

* Grappler-archetype ships in ''VideoGame/RingRunnerFlightOfTheSages'' were created by asteroid miners who discovered that a great way to deal with SpacePirates was to load up on heavy armor (originally designed for protection from collisions and industrial accidents), pull in an opponent using {{tractor beam}}s (originally meant for grabbing rocks), and then tearing up their target with short-range drills, saws, and cutting beams (originally used for cracking asteroids). Eventually the military noticed the effectiveness of this, and began constructing combat vessels designed from the ground up to use the Grappler style.
* One of the oldest and most popular arcade games, ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'' involves shooting asteroids into tinier and tinier chunks. The game doesn’t quite state openly this is for mining, however.
* Progressing far enough in ''VideoGame/EvolveIdle'' allows the player to set up deep space mining ships to mine materials like iron, iridium, and [[VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown Elerium]] from the asteroid belt.

* ''VideoGame/OxygenNotIncluded'' is a management sim where you run a mining colony inside an asteroid (which oddly has its own biosphere).
* ''VideoGame/VGAPlanets:'' Some versions of the game feature "debris fields" composed of the remains of shattered planets, which have higher mineral concentrations than normal planets but require a little more work to successfully colonize.
* The lone astronaut from ''VideoGame/HeavenlyBodies'' also has to venture off it in a shuttlecraft to mine nearby asteroids for minerals. The minerals are seem to be red, blue, and yellow gems embedded in rocket only collectible by the high-tech drill attached to the shuttlecraft.

* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' the Punyverse uses asteroid mining as a common punishment for criminals.

* Most Belters in ''Webcomic/EscapeFromTerra'', though Ceres and a few other asteroids are developed enough to support populations with different professions. Also the source of the mineral wealth that the United World is desperate to get their hands on.

* "Shady" Slater is just settling into mining an asteroid when the "Phantom Fleet" is mobilized in ''WebAnimation/ClearSkies 2''.

* ''LetsPlay/{{Mahu}}'': In "Second Chance", the Galactic Commonwealth builds its first bases outside their new homeworld in mineral-rich asteroids. Other intergalactic nations do the same, seeking resources to face rivals and increase their power.
* ''Website/OrionsArm'' has [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/460c39f266c1e an article]] on the topic. It points out the various challenges of mining asteroids, including the lack of atmosphere, the low gravity, the often irregular shape and rapid rotation. To deal with these challenges, special ships such as [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/491ef8728e01e gravity tugs]] (which move asteroids around using gravity) and [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a01e7a9b74f6 Pacman Miners]] (which enclose asteroids to avoid any of the material being lost during the mining process) are used.
* The {{Creepypasta}} ''Section 3'' is all about an asteroid miner recently assigned to a mostly automated ship built for four caretakers, and begins to experience the same unexplained phenomena that [[DrivenToSuicide drove his predecessor to suicide]]. The ship is called a "''Kraken''-class Meteor Miner", named after its resemblance to a giant squid. A bunch of mechanical tentacles grab and pull asteroids towards a huge drill consisting of three serrated metal plates, and the processing equipment and crew quarters forms the mantle.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUARMF9cf04 This]] FakeMovieRealTrailer by Paul Otaking for an anime Franchise/{{Alien}} movie called ''Alien: Monday'' has the crew of an asteroid mining ship picking up a far more deadlier cargo.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' consisted of Jimmy and his friends going out to an asteroid to find "space rubies" and keeping their find away from thieves.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': Yellow Diamond owns several asteroid mines run by Agates, as seen in "[[Recap/StevenUniverseS5E13YourMotherAndMine Your Mother And Mine]]". Rhodonite tells Captain Lars that they and the rest of the Off Colors can raid them to find parts to repair their ship's nova thrusters so they can make it back to Earth.

[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* ''Animation/BoBoiBoy Movie 2'' features the "Crystal Miners", a group of alien miners who mine crystal from asteroids. One of those asteroids happen to contain [[BigBad Retak'ka]], finally releasing him from [[SealedEvilInACan being trapped in frozen crystal for 100 years]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works ]]

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' has [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/460c39f266c1e an article]] on the topic. It points out the various challenges of mining asteroids, including the lack of atmosphere, the low gravity, the often irregular shape and rapid rotation. To deal with these challenges, special ships such as [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/491ef8728e01e gravity tugs]] (which move asteroids around using gravity) and [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a01e7a9b74f6 Pacman Miners]] (which enclose asteroids to avoid any of the material being lost during the mining process) are used.

* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' had you doing this as well. The Somtaaw in Cataclysm start out as just a mining kiith.

* There are two ways you can do this in ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}''. The first is to build a pillar (or use techs) to go past your planet's atmosphere, where you can find asteroids floating about. The second is to visit an Asteroid Biome. One advantage of this is that it's very easy to see where all the ores and minerals are, making it easy to mine compared to spelunking. Several disadvantages are that the ores are mostly embedded in meteor rock (or worse, magma rock) that makes it very slow to mine, the second is getting an EPP in order to breathe (which you don't get until you get your hands on some tungsten). In the early beta, you also had to get clothes/armor that provide enough warmth because, well, SpaceIsCold (unless you want to be silly and bring a campfire/nanostove to keep you warm).

* There are two ways you can do this in ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}''. The first is to build a pillar (or use techs) to go past your planet's atmosphere, where you can find asteroids floating about. The second is to visit an Asteroid Biome. One advantage of this is that it's very easy to see where all the ores and minerals are, making it easy to mine compared to spelunking. Several disadvantages are that the ores are mostly embedded in meteor rock (or worse, magma rock) that makes it very slow to mine, the second is not only do you need a survival pack in order to breathe (which you don't get until you get access to the Delta Sector in which you're working with durasteel), but also clothes/armor that provide enough warmth because, well, SpaceIsCold (unless you want to be silly and bring a campfire/nanostove to keep you warm).

[[folder:Machinima]]
* "Shady" Slater is just settling into mining an asteroid when the "Phantom Fleet" is mobilized in ''Machinima/ClearSkies 2''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]

* Spacely's Orbiting Ore Asteroid from ''WesternAnimation/JetsonsTheMovie''. The plant is fully automated, so there aren't actual miners, however.

* ''Literature/TheRollingStones'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein features the titular Stone family traveling to the Asteroid Belt, where the twins of the family hope to sell food and luxury items to the miners extracting radioactive ores.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stars}}'', any unoccupied planet (or planet occupied by an Alternate Reality race) can be mined for materials, and it is practically necessary to do so.

Stories that feature [[RecycledINSPACE miners IN SPACE!]] draw [[SpaceWestern a lot of inspiration from]] (and sometimes directly steal from) stories regarding the various gold and silver rushes of the 1800s. A notable aspect of this is that, since space is essentially infinite from a human perspective, the main factor that ended the historic gold rushes -- that, eventually, the frontier closes and you run out of easily available deposits to prospect -- isn't a factor for asteroid miners. When your local areas become played out and frontiersman mining is no longer viable, you can always move to another star system and start over.

* Creator/RayBradbury's ''Leviathan '99'' is a version of ''Literature/MobyDick'' RecycledInSpace, where the whales are asteroids, Moby Dick is a sentient comet, and Achab's harpoon is a ten-megaton nuclear warhead.

** The GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/BattlefleetGothic'' includes an alien race called the Demiurg who mostly live in massive [[MobileFactory factory ships]], and tend to survive by asteroid mining. Quite fitting, as they are basically [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarfs]] [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]

* The ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' series features asteroids that can be blown apart with a special (and otherwise largely useless) [[UtilityWeapon Mining Laser]] into fragments that can be scooped into the cargo bay and sold. A third party add-on for ''VideoGame/{{Oolite}}'' adds a ship accessory (which ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' also has) that turns your ship into a MobileFactory of sorts, giving a small chance of extracting higher-value cargo from the fragments. It's a low-risk, low-reward and generally BoringButPractical way of grinding for cash.

** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', almost every single star system containing an asteroid belt has at least one asteroid that you can scan, for easy money and XP. Just put the redicle over it, and press one button... to claim it for the Alliance and mark its location for others to mine. You're a soldier, after all, not a miner.

* The eponymous ''Series/RedDwarf'' is a mining ship carrying (and processing) ore on its way back to Earth. At least, that was the plan...

--> In a crater, on an ast'roid,\\