Asteroid Mining is the industry of extracting precious metals from Vesisaari’s Asteroid Rings. Mining began in 5058, and was a slow, deliberate, and dangerous process. Heavy mechanical drills needed to be transported to the asteroid, special care was needed to secure the drill in place, constant diligence was required to avoid deadly accidents with the drill, and then if all went well the unrefined ore would need to be transferred back to Vesisaari for refinement.
The economics of Asteroid Mining increased as Gold and Platinum were also discovered to embedded in asteroids, but the real game changer was when Lazers were invented and replaced mechanical drills. Lazers were lighter, easier to control, and made the mining process extreamely more efficient. Vesisaari saw a huge jump in asteroid minors because of this, and ore processing plants soon became overloaded.
To keep up with demand and decrease the amount of waste on Vesisaari, a space port and ore processing plant were built on the moon, called Moon Base Yski. Since its completion in 5160, asteroid minors only have to fly unprocessed ore to the moon, and then Metal Runners transport refined ore to the home planet.