How much time will it take to mine the Asteroid Belt?

So how long would it take to send exploration and mining missions there? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Asteroids, Astronomy ... The asteroids of the inner Solar System and Jupiter: The donut-shaped asteroid belt is located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. Credit: Wikipedia Commons. read more

Though this question seems the most beguiling to most people unacquainted with the concept of asteroid mining, there are plenty of ways to mine and collect the metals of an asteroid. read more

It is believed that there are more than three trillion dollars worth of minerals in Afghanistan that haven't been mined. It's obviously significantly easier and cheaper to mine Afghanistan than the asteroid belt, but at the moment, most companies don't consider it worth the effort for numerous reasons. read more

However, at any given time, part of the Asteroid Belt will be on the opposite side of the Sun, relative to Earth. From this vantage point, the distance between Earth and the Asteroid Blt ranges from 3.2 and 4.2 AU – 478.7 to 628.3 million km (297.45 to 390.4 million mi). read more