Mike Wall opined in 2015 that asteroid mining could shift from sci-fi to world-changing reality soon. Planetary Resources deployed its first spacecraft from the International Space Station last month, and the Washington-based asteroid-mining company aims to launch a series of increasingly ambitious and capable probes over the next few years. The goal is to begin transforming asteroid water into rocket fuel within a decade, and eventually to harvest valuable and useful platinum-group metals from space rocks. They have every expectation that delivering water from asteroids and creating an in-space refueling economy is something that they will see in the next 10 years, even in the first half of the 2020s. said Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki. After that, they think it will be how the market develops, Lewicki told Space.com, referring to the timeline for going after asteroid metals. If there is one thing that we have seen repeat throughout history, if one tend to overpredict then in the next year one will tend to vastly underpredict in the next 10 years, he added.
They are moving very fast, and the world is changing very quickly around us, so I think those things will come to us sooner than we might think. Planetary Resources and another company, Deep Space Industries, aim to help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system by tapping asteroid resources. Carbonaceous chondrites also commonly contain metals such as iron, nickel and cobalt, so targeting these asteroids could allow miners to start building things off Earth as well. That is the logical next step beyond exploiting water, Lewicki said. This ambitious plan begins with water (other than ice), which is plentiful in a type of space rock known as carbonaceous chondrites. Asteroid-derived water could do far more than simply meet astronaut thirst, mining advocates say.. it could also help shield them from dangerous radiation. Read on still applicable.
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