I have been waiting for this since I first heard about asteroid mining. Its going to wreck precious metal prices in a way that I don't think we've ever seen before. To put things in perspective, with 90 million tons of platinum in this asteroid, we could multiply the current total production of platinum by 1000x, and still mine this asteroid for the next several centuries.

Gaining the ability to gather those materials would definitely be awesome, and the advancements in technology and space travel will have tremendous benefit. However, the thing that concerns me is the manner in which the product is acquired and distributed. If it happens through a benevolent means, ie; a group of nations joining together to fully share the technology and gains, then great. More likely this will be played out similar to petroleum products, diamonds, and other rare, in-demand commodities. That is to say, for profit. Not that I'm against profit, but I could see this becoming more about the bottom dollar than about advancing humanity.

This is just something for the corporations to fight over. Which would in turn make it harder on the rest of us.