Re: It's tempting to say "It'll never happen," but...
It used to be that private companies used to plan for the far future. My favorite example is the Dutch, whose massive planetary engineering projects;
dikes, windmills, canals, etc claimed land from the sea that would not become profitable for agriculture for generations.
It's difficult to visualize modern companies in our short-term-profit age getting involved in this kind of visionary planning. This is why I have so little faith in the concept of free enterprise space exploration. Venture capitalists may be willing to invest in a project that will turn a profit in the short term, like cheap comsat lift capacity or space tourism, but long term enterprises like asteroid mining will never be appealing to this mentality.