Flying Mountains And Known Space

"'The Belt's going to grow!...This is the real frontier. The planets will never amount to much. It's actually harder to maintain human-type conditions on so big a mass, with a useless atmosphere around you, than on a lump in space like this. And the gravity wells are so deep. Even given nuclear power, the energy cost of really exploiting a planet is prohibitive. Besides which, the choice minerals are buried under kilometers of rock. On a metallic asteroid, you can find almost everything you want directly under your feet.'"

-Tales Of The Flying Mountains, pp. 51-52.

Plus which, solar energy is so plentiful that the asterites do not need (dangerous) nuclear.

Some of the same arguments are deployed in Larry Niven's Known Space future history where gravity wells are called "holes":

"For reasons of economy the Belters concentrated on the wealth of the asteroids. With fusion-drive ships they could have mined the planets; but their techniques were more universally applicable in free fall and among the falling mountains. Only Mercury was rich enough to attract the Belt miners...

"...there were Belters who would never go anywhere near a planet."

-Larry Niven, Tales Of Known Space (New York, 1975), p. 81.

"'Belters learn to avoid gravity wells. A man can get killed half a dozen ways coming too close to a hole.'"

-Larry Niven, "At The Bottom Of A Hole" IN Tales Of Known Space, pp. 82-99 AT p. 83.

We have come a long way through several American future history series.