Nick made the point that if we had access to vast amounts of platinum group metals through space resources then the value of these metals would drop to near zero. Now carry this thinking to the next step. Say we develop a technology based upon von Neuman machines (self replicating machines) that used space resources as their "food". These machines would be like self replicating Swiss army knives. A few of them would fly off to an asteroid, ingest the asteroids material to build up their numbers to a sufficient size and then construct some target object, e.g., a starship the size of Manhatten island. Under this scenario, labor and materials would have almost no value. A necessary piece of the puzzle would be a full blown, machine based artificial intelligence. You have a master machine that is like a HAL-9000 computer (near infinite patience with intelligence to match) which is the puppet master of the von Neuman / Swiss army knives. In fact the master machine could use the von Neuman / Swiss army knives to make other master machines (the master machine is really another von Neuman machine). So now getting back to the star ship example. Someone in some super advanced civilization has the whim that he wants a starship the size of Manhatten island. He has no clue how to build such a thing but doesn't need to have that clue. All he needs is the desire. He gets on the phone and commands a master machine to design him a star ship. The master machine then flies off to some large asteroid with a small number self replicating Swiss army knives, a few years pass and Presto!, there's a starship. What relevance does economics have in this sort of scenario. The only things that would have real value would be ideas, interest and time.

Gary