system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[The Expanse] If they are mining ice asteroids then shouldn't the stations have enough if not more water and air than they need?

Also even non-ice asteroids should give them a large amount of ice and oxygen. Not to mention oxygen scrubbers and water purification/reuse. Was it just for there to be conflict or is there something really wrong with their tech or economic corruption.
gpt
Ceres was pretty used up and severely overpopulated - a lot of people (undocumented workers, criminals, orphans, etc) were "off-book" and drained resources. Most of the biggest asteroids were also probably cracked by that point , likely to help with the terraforming effort on Mars, so ice haulers had to range farther out (the Canterbury was returning from Saturn).