I took the mining tutorial and the text is not very clear on how to select an asteroid and such. Also doesn't tell me how close I need to be to the asteroid.

Here is the log of the mining tutorial and some suggested clarifications.

"This is a mission developed by this station to train miners. You will learn about mining equipment and how to mine. You will need a ship with a small port (S) for this mission and will be given a free mineral scanner and mining beam. You will earn mining experiance for completing this mission."

(At this point I had no idea what to do. Since I'm a vet I hook up my free scanner, once I do the next paragraph pops up. Need to clarify that they should equip the mineral scanner here to continue.)
<add something like this to clarify> "To continue go to the Ship tab, Manage, and then configure your ship to equip the provided mineral scanner to a small port on your ship."

"Now you have to leave the station and scan a few asteroids or ice cystals. Leave the station to continue the tutorial."
"Choose an asteroid or ice cystal to scan by pressing"

(pressing what?! Since I am a vet I know what to do and press b and get within 500 meters to scan it. But to a new person this wouldn't be obvious at all.)
<to clarify add to the following sentance> " 'b' key and get within 500 meters of your targeted asteroid. You can see the distance and the information of the scanned asteroid in the top right area of the screen."

"Good you scanned an asteroid. Practice scanning a few different asteriods and then dock at the station to continue the tutorial."

(should clarify that they should return to the station and change out their scanner and equip the mining beam now)
<once they dock add> "Now that you've docked switch out the scanner from your ship configuration screen and equip the provided mining beam to coninute."

"The second pice of equipment is the mining beam. The mining beam allows you to mine ore from asteroids. However the mining beam causes the asteroid to heat up. The higher the temperature of the asteroid, the slower the mining. Are you ready to continue?"
"Good, now that you have the mining beam equiped leave the station to continue the tutorial. Remember, when in space, you have to press the 'm' <add> key to contact the mission log."
"The type of mineral you can mine depends on the mineral composition of the asteroid. For example, if the asteroid is 100% carbonic ore you will only mine carbonic ore. However if the asteroid is 25% carbonic and 75% ferric ore, about 25% of the ore you mine will be carbonic and 75% will be ferric."
"Continue the lesson"
"Temperature also influences how fast you can mine ore. The hotter the asteroid the slower the ore is mined. Smaller asteroids will heat up faster than larger asteroids, however smaller asteroids will also cool faster than large asteroids."
"Continue the lesson"
"Select an asteroid to mine by pressing"

(again the selection key isn't stated)
<add to previous sentence> " the 'b' key and get within 100 meters of it and then press the fire key to start the mining beam."

"Now try mining 5 crates of ore."
"Excelent work.(!) You have finished this tutorial. We hope you will mine for us in the future. We will let you keep the mining gun (beam) and scanner. You can go to the mining station and sell your ore."

After trying to sell the free mining beam or the free scanner they do not disappear from the inventory. When you click on them again they generate a lua error (didn't get a chance to copy the code exactly, will create a new alt later to capture that log). I then sold my small port mining beam and nothing happened. I undocked and redocked and the free equipment was still there. Finally I sold my plasma cannon HX and all of the free equipment disappeared.

Actually, not only are the Free mining beam and scanner effected by the lua error when you sell them from ship management, but so are the regular mining beams and scanners. Only when you sell another trade good do they disappear. I have yet to test all the higher level mining beams and scanners.