[kerryfalk]

Can you define what you mean by not spending a lot of resources on Mining?

A significant part of the world’s GDP is in mining and mining and its subsidiary industries (manufacturing for example could not exist without mining) contributes something like 60-70% of the world’s GDP.

We do not have vast excess supply. There are likely many deposits left to be found but it’s widely accepted that the easy resources have been found and we must go deeper to find more. Exploration over the last couple of years has not been invested in and the trove of known resources has been dwindling.

Mining space is impractical due to costs (there are a lot of cost savings to still be had on Earth).

Source: I work for one of the world’s largest suppliers of mining equipment and am heavily involved in the mining market in Canada and peripherally the rest of the world for hard rock mining.

[Retric]

Linking mining to manufacturing is meaningless. You can manufacture with recicled material. Outside of radioactive material we don't destroy anything else just transform it. Sure, marble for example has nice aesthetics, but we can't get marble from the asteroid belt just basic elements which don't disappear.