Asteroid Mining – A Detailed Concept Design Approach

Asteroids contain vast quantities of valuable minerals, far exceeding what we can exploit on Earth. These include platinum-group metals (like platinum, iridium, rhodium), nickel, cobalt, iron, and water ice, all crucial for commerce and potential space-based refueling stations during long-haul missions.

The problem? Asteroids are widely scattered across space and often extremely far away.

Today, multiple private companies and agencies are actively researching asteroid mining technologies and planning missions within the next few years.

For game design, asteroid mining is an incredibly compelling setting: It offers drama, scale, and a true frontier spirit. Massive metallic asteroids, swarms of mining drones, and orbital refineries create striking visual opportunities and cinematic aesthetics, perfect for immersive storytelling and gameplay.

The Process

↓ The starting point was a macro perspective:
What would an asteroid actually look like if it was being mined? How would it change its silhouette?

Sure, there may be delicate methods, pinpoint drilling, small-scale extraction sites. But is that visually interesting enough? Games need scale. Exaggeration. Impact. Imagery that sticks.

So… are humans swinging pickaxes in space? Or is a massive excavator crawling across a floating rock? I assumed: if machines are doing the job, they’re doing it thoroughly. Mathematical. And that idea directly shaped the visual tone of my designs.

I began exploring the topic by experimenting with displacement maps, which I randomly applied to spheres in Blender. Even at this early stage, the results look a bit like mining scars.

I quickly realized I had far more ideas than time to fully develop them. So I turned to photobashing as a fast and effective way to visualize a broad range of concepts. This method allowed me to combine learned design languages from Earth in unusual ways, for example: a granite quarry on an asteroid, an offshore oil rig on an asteroid, or even a half-eaten apple (more on that below).

Afterward, I worked with the art director to select our favorites. The most important goal at this stage: the designs had to feel unique, visually distinct and creatively bold.

Above: Comet 67P From Rosetta Mission 2016

With the research phase complete, it was time to move into design. For creating organic shapes, working in VR proved very helpful. Using Adobe Medium, I sculpted an initial asteroid kit as a foundation, because you simply can’t visualize asteroid mining without asteroids.

Back in Blender, I added additional detail using displacement textures and arrayed stone elements for extra detail. Once I was happy with the result, the asteroid creation phase was complete.

The next fun step was to use booleans to cut holes, bend, and morph the asteroid, pushing its form in all directions. While maintaining its core asteroid look, I aimed to create unique shapes.

This shot works perfectly. It delivers drama, cinematic scale (just look at the tiny spaceship, this asteroid is massive!), a metallic, ore-like texture, and the ominous darkness of space surrounding it. And most importantly: this asteroid looks like it’s been hollowed out, emptied, and scraped clean, like the last scoop of ice cream from a sundae.

I took this idea a step further, developing what I call the “eaten apple” concept. I created several variations based on it, but one problem arose: the design felt too fragile, unlikely to hold its shape without breaking. So, we realized we needed something bolder and more structurally stable.

So, back to booleans and cutting! I decided to revisit my initial design board, packed with dozens of ideas, and focus on developing those further.

In the end, we settled on a compromise and decided not to explore the idea further until we had more input from the game design team. I imagined that a central mining station, similar to an offshore oil rig, wouldn’t need to be physically attached to the asteroid. Instead, it could remain freely mobile, connected only by conveyor belts to smaller mining-rig-outposts on the asteroid’s surface.

Since there’s no gravity in space, there’s also no weight limit for the station’s size or mass.

Unfortunately, we didn’t develop the “carved-out asteroid” idea any further at this stage.

I also explored other approaches, like this asteroid splitter, which uses a gravitational field to slice through rock and access the valuable material inside. (In the game, this concept is heavily simplified, of course, in reality, the valuable resources aren’t conveniently located in the center like the core of an apple.)

A mobile harvester fleet could operate in coordinated groups, assuming the asteroids line up just right. 😉

As so often happens during early concept development, this asteroid-development was eventually put on hold, and never picked up again. Another task suddenly became more important. Still, I really enjoyed this creative deep dive into asteroid mining. If you’re up for more asteroid-related action, be sure to check out my Vehicle Design article.