Asteroid use

Look one question and one question only:

'Do most factories produce more than their own mass
of products (including any people, life suppport etc)?'

I think that most people here, apparently except you
Marcel think "yes of course" whereas you seem to
think implicitly not.

Transport costs something per tonne (mind you
so does having the factory out of comission whilst
it travels somewhere.) but transport costs. So
whether you move the factory or the resources rests
mostly on this point.

These are the kinds of questions that people in
industry have to ask themselves. How can we make
the most money? Because if the transport costs
for the raw materials is X and the transport costs
for finished materials is Y and moving factory is Z
then if X < Y + Z you leave the factory somewhere
and ship stuff to it.

If X > Y + Z then you move the factory. Clear?

Clearly the numbers are going to depend on the goods
and the factory.

At the end of the day- any Mars colony doesn't
care whether it gets its goods from the
earth, mars or Eros. Only the price matters.