In order to be able to expand into the asteroid belt, and further, it was necessary to build a fleet of new, much larger, ships.[Chapter 76 - Shipbuilding] To do this, and to be able to efficiently settle new asteroids, it was necessary to establish off-world mineral and hydrocarbon mining and processing, together with material fabrication shops and plastics manufacture.

The search for suitable asteroids to mine began in late 1977 and continues to this day. The minerals sought for processing were both for use in the Heim settlements and occasionally for export to Earth. The latter being high value scarce elements, sold to assist in financing Earth operations. The main considerations for suitability for minerals extraction were, and still are, composition and accessibility. Ideal sources were relatively nearby objects in similar orbits and so early expeditions concentrated on those.

On these early expeditions, candidate asteroids for future mining were thoroughly surveyed, and test cores were drilled where necessary. On some of the bodies they found that the surface regolith was rich in minerals, hydrocarbons or hydrated minerals containing water. Some were solid and some of the smaller ones were relatively loose collections of material, hanging together precariously by weak gravitational attraction.

Interestingly, they found that carbonate minerals are not the only carbon-bearing material. Some of the material samples contained organic materials, specifically asphaltite, similar to that previously been found in meteorites collected on earth.

These initial survey expeditioners were astonished to discover the abundance and range of readily accessible materials on the bodies they visited. By extrapolation they concluded that, for practical purposes, the supply of all elements required was, for all intents and purposes, unlimited. This finding was critical to the University's plans for self-sufficiency and expansion. From all these bodies, a small group were initially selected for mining.

Much later the larger long-distance exploration vessels, the SV1s, ranged further afield although still only covering a very small segment of the vast asteroid belt. As these larger vessels travelled further into the outer belt, they discovered a number of so-called Centaurs - ice bodies which had originated in the Kuyper belt. As noted in an earlier chapter, the early expeditions were aware of their existence but had not detected any reasonably accessible ones.

Today, the search continues using small long-range robotic scout ships - the RBV - Robotic exploration vessels. These are designed to slowly roam the belt for many years. When a prospective body is identified by the Heim Astronomy and Astrophysics Circle (A&A), the nearest of these roving RBVs is guided to it, to conduct a basic survey and gather data to be returned to base. These vessels are largely autonomous, with radio transmissions back to base limited to short coded bursts. They are programmed to periodically return to Alpha or Beta for major data download, sample delivery and servicing. Because of these ships, the A&A Circle is rapidly building up a sizeable database of belt mineral resources.

The recovery of volatiles is achieved by on-body processing using a combination of new space vehicles - the SV4 Mining support vessel and the SV3 Liquid and gas carrier. Similar procedures are used for the recovery of other minerals, again by using the SV4 Mining support vessel together with SV2 Dry ore carriers.