Asteroid Mining

So a thing about mining asteroids for minerals popped up on r/technology here, looks like your usual blue sky company mission statement. The concept is wonderfully science fiction though, I just doubt we're at the stage of being able to consider such activities. Apparently Larry Page and James Cameron disagree so perhaps I'm being too cynical here. If so it's simply because I would love to see this go ahead. Just think a proper industrial base in space allowing us to avoid all the pesky problems with exiting the Earth's gravitywell when we have a new probe or satellite to launch. To be fair that is a bit more complex than the idea of prospecting Near-Earth objects but it's the first step to having greatly expanded space exploration opportunities. Building and mining things in space is just too darn cool.