Asteroid mining

Asteroid mining is the process of extracting valuable minerals from asteroids instead from the Home's crust. The Homelanders use it as an alternative, when they need rare chemical elements in larger quanities than the planet can provide.

Overview
Ever since the discovery of space flights, the Homelanders considered a possiblity to gain the nigh-unlimited resources the Universe can provide.

One of the main source of said resources were the asteroids, that have many chemical elements in their crust. Besides, the asteroids themselves are widely distributed in the Homelanders' star system, which implied that the resources they have won't run out for a very long time.

Rare elements
Asteroids contain a vast amount of rare chemical elements, particulary platinum, tungsten, titanium, nickel and aluminium.

Because the Homelanders' inner struction contains inorganic nanotubes' sheets, such as tungsten and titanium disulfide or alternative chemical compounds that nevertheless use the two aforementioned metals, and these elements are relatively rare in the Home's crust, asteroid mining allows them to get as much as they need.

Since the Homelanders product and use a lot of various grades of steel, they use nickel to make stainless steel to suit their needs and wants.

Catalyst metals, such as platinum, are used for various chemical reactions that are still made when the Homelanders work on certain project, as well in everyday life.

Environmental concerns
Another reason for asteroid mining is sustainability. When mining of the Home's crust gets out of control, it severely damages the air and land and causes an irreversible harm to flora and fauna, even if planetary prgramming removes a noticable chunk of damage. The Homelanders deem it unnacceptable.

Asteroid mining is used to eliminate the environmental impact of planetary resources extraction. Even extremely abundant chemical elements, such as carbon, were mined from the asteroids during the construction of the star sphere, where they were used in the forms of graphene and nanotubes.

Catching and mining
The Homelanders usually have two options of extracting resources from the asteroids: either bringing them on the planet and process there or to bring them on the Home's orbit and build automatic mining plants on them, so the latter would extract and accelerate the resoruces to the desired locations.

The first option implies limited harm to the environment which can be easily reversed withing several hours, while the second remains environmentally-friendly.

To catch and bring asteroids to the required place, the Homelanders use nuclear pulse propulsion rocket engines to lift off the automatic asteroid catchers that have limited AIs, thanks to the rockets' superior payload capacity.

When near asteroids, the catchers place huge solar sails on the asteroids and use their own engines to change the space rock's trajectory accordingly.

Alternatives include massive electromagnetic catapults that accelerate catchers using the power of electromagnets within a long tube devoid of air to prevent resistance and friction and increase the maximum speed.

Another alternative is a pure fusion nuclear pulse propulsion, catalyzed by antimatter. This alternative has higher payload to mass ratio and provides relatively clean nuclear explosions that propulse the catchers.

On the orbit the catchers remove all propulsion means and let the planet's gravity to do its job. After that, the catchers return back, and the Homelanders launch automatic mining plants.

Sometimes hybrid catchers/mining plants complexes are used, but in this case they require much more fuel which increases the overall mass and therefore, lowers the efficiency.

The Homelanders can catch asteroids themselves. In this case they united in small groups, accelerate themselves towards the asteroids and move them with the same acceleration to the planet's orbit. It is much faster and effective, but requires direct intervention, so this is why this activity is treated as a fun way to spend time rather than a duty.

Present
The Final Singularity had ended the practice of particular asteroid mining, instead making direct manipulation of atoms and molecules extremely easy and fast.

Raw material now comes mostly from hydrogen and helium, but any matter can be used, because nowadays its composition doesn't matter, because the Homelanders break it to individual baryons and form specific atoms and molecules out of them, turning, for example, carbon into lithium or uranium.