Now that a probe has been landed on an asteroid, how far off is mining one for whatever riches it has?

They are already mining the riches on the asteroid. They are probing for valuable scientific information.

Getting anything out of earth’s gravity well is VERY expensive, and I believe it took our probe 10 years to get to the asteroid. The technology is there, but we won’t be mining asteroids until we have some financial incentive to do so. It would have to be cheaper/ more profitable to get minerals in space for us to do it.

If we could develop some cheaper and more efficient way to get into space, it could be worth it.

As much as I agree in every respect with the first paragraph of @Haleth‘s response, the second one is actually incorrect.

For this reason: If we had a cheaper and more efficient way to get into space, then the economics of life on this planet would preclude the need for whatever minerals are likely to be found on a rock in space.

To demonstrate this, consider fresh water. This is arguably “the most valuable mineral” on Earth. (No, it’s not a rock, but it’s a chemical compound, same as any other mineral.) It’s the most valuable mineral because life itself depends upon it. In some parts of the world we can take the presence of potable fresh water pretty much for granted most of the time. (At times of service interruption and natural disaster we often find how much we take “fresh water any time we want it” for granted, and how foolish we are to do that.) But there are some places on the planet where the absence of fresh water makes life impossible for anyone but a temporary visitor or one in transit between livable places. If we had “energy cheap enough for space launches at nominal cost”, then we would also have the cheap energy to create desalinization plants and pumping stations to put fresh water anywhere we wanted it on Earth. So why go to space, in that case, to mine frozen or liquid water (assuming it could be found) to bring it back to Earth?

Slightly OT but has the lander been able to secure it’s harpoons into the asteroids? Been having a hard time finding concrete info on this.

I suspect bringing it back would be a tougher proposition than sending it out. What you suggest is pretty far into our future.

If the asteroid were solid gold, there would still be no economic formula for turning a profit on the thing in the foreseeable future. The incentive might be there, but we are now a short term profit civilization. Perhaps a scheme to push the rock into orbit around the moon, or even into the moon might come around, but I doubt if any here will still be alive when such a thing is realized.

Not an asteroid, it’s a comet, subtle difference.
As for the question, no one here could possibly know.

@ucme you’re right and the difference isn’t subtle at all. Mining a comet is a much trickier proposition than an asteroid.

@stanleybmanly Not referring to the mining aspect, was a sarcastic subtle considering the properties in each. Part ice versus part metal, a fairly stark contrast.

It is a comet.

Someday maybe, but not soon enough to slow our mad race to exhaust our own small rock’s natural wealth.

It was a comet, not an asteroid.

Haha, people here are so very observant when reading through a thread.

It is not financially feasible to mine any asteroids or comets because you have to prospect for riches first, then go after them.

Only if they find an asteroid (or comet) made of solid unobtainium.