From
Newscientist (Short Sharp Science)
Talk of mining asteroids was once the preserve of corduroy-flare-clad, optimists of the Apollo era. Now the idea is making a comeback thanks to enterprising tech billionaires and a nascent commercial space industry.
The company Planetary Resources is due to outline today in Seattle, Washington, its aims to mine near-Earth asteroids for precious metals. "The resources of Earth pale in comparison to the wealth of the solar system," company founder Eric Anderson, also of Space Adventures, told Wired Science.
Anderson's co-founder is Peter Diamandis of the X Prize foundation, which runs competitions to stimulate privately funded space technology. The pair are backed by billionaires from Google, Microsoft and Dell and are advised by film director James Cameron and ex-NASA employees.
Planetary Resources says its first step is to launch a small fleet of space telescopes within the next few years to identify potentially valuable near-Earth asteroids. While asteroids are known to be rich in platinum, nickel and other precious metals that are steadily rising in value, it's still the start of a daunting task.
First off, there's the question of how to get there. Just returning a few grains of dust from an asteroid almost defeated the Japanese space agency. Their Hayabusa probe was hit by a violent solar storm on the way to the asteroid Itokawa and lost contact during landing. On top of that, the sampling device did not work correctly. Nevertheless, the spacecraft limped home and delivered its precious cargo of asteroid dust in June, 2010.
A better idea might be to go to an asteroid that has become temporarily trapped in Earth's orbit. A recent New Scientist feature story details investigations into how to reach such mini-Moons.
Even so, drilling, mining, refining in zero gravity has never been tried. Without gravity to help keep rocks on conveyor belts, for example, ore will have to be transported in whole new ways.
There's also the tricky question of who owns an asteroid. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty appears to make asteroid mining a difficult proposition.
Planetary Resources is part of a burgeoning commercial space industry filling a void left by NASA, which is now struggling to fund space exploration. If the company can find ways to make money while it rises to the many challenges of mining asteroids, it may be on to something more valuable than precious metals - a sustainable way to fund space exploration.