Looks like this accidentally got resolved early because the closing date passed. Re-opening with a closing date at an appropriate point in the future.

Related: https://manifold.markets/IsaacKing/will-an-asteroid-be-mined-for-miner

Will an asteroid be mined for minerals before 2040?

50% chance. It can be a test, but it needs to be a test of commercial mining, not just returning samples for scientific study. The mining on the asteroid must be succcesful, but it doesn't need to make it back to Earth.

Why was this resolved YES?

@dp9000 Good question. Seems like a misresolution to me! I reported it in the #please-resolve discord channel.

@AbheeShah I notice this has closed despite the resolution being well in the future; it would be more interesting if it was open until the resolution date, I think! Do you want to reopen it?

@EvanDaniel Done

Yes, Each year NASA discovers thousands of asteroids and dozens of comets, some of which, called near-Earth objects (NEOs), follow orbits that pass through the inner solar system. Now, with a total of around 28,000, the number increases daily. These objects are carefully tracked by NASA-funded astronomers, in case any could pose an impact threat to our planet.

Which makes us think that these 7 years until 2030 will not be enough to explore all the asteroids that we have around us.

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are already projections of exploring asteroids for 2026, which increases the possibility of an asteroid exploding in 2030. (https://www.nasa.gov/)

NASA

NASA.gov brings you the latest news, images and videos from America's space agency, pioneering the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

Specify the resolution criteria please:

• Minimum scale of the operation? Would something at the scale of this (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-collects-first-mars-rock-sample) qualify as "mining"? How much needs to be mined?

• Is there a requirement to bring any material back to earth?

@Toby96 Minimum scale - anything

Requirement to bring back to earth - yes

@AbheeShah The no minimum criterium makes no sense. Osiris-Rex just came back to Earth last month with a few hundred grams of sample from asteroid Bennu. Does this market now resolve Yes?