To Mine or Not to Mine?

Social studies of science have flourished within the last decades, making use of numerous intellectual tools from a high variety of academic fields in the social sciences and the humanities (sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, etc.). Game theory, however, has been one tool that has not been put to use too often, in spite of the obvious importance of strategic considerations in the negotiations between the relevant actors in research episodes. In this chapter, the authors illustrate the use of game-theoretical concepts and techniques with the analysis of a nascent research field: asteroid mining.