Astronomy, Mining | featured news

What if you could mine the Moon?

The Moon

Space exploration has long been about reaching far off destinations but now there's a race to exploit new frontiers by mining their minerals. When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon in 1969, it was part of a "flags and footprints" strategy to beat the Soviets, a triumph of imagination and innovation, not an attempt to extract precious metals.

 

'Fireflies' to scope asteroids for mining

Asteroid Mining

Another company joined the commercial space race Tuesday with ambitious plans to mine asteroids near Earth, but experts say the physics and economics of the Final Frontier remain still daunting.

 

This $20 Trillion Rock Could Turn a Startup Into Earth's Richest Company

Asteroid Mining

Meet Amun 3554... Little more than a mile wide, it's one of the smallest M-class (metal-bearing) asteroids yet discovered... So, the total payout from one unassuming asteroid? $20,000,000,000,000. That’s what got Planetary Resources co-founder Peter Diamandis so excited. “There are $20 trillion checks up there waiting to be cashed,” he enthused at a space development conference in 2006.

 

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