How feasible is space mining ?

Can Eric Anderson and Chris Lewicki of Planetary Resources actually succeed in mining asteroids ?

The idea seems simple in principal but just how feasible is it ? Is there money to be made sending spacecraft to asteroids, mining valuable materials and then bringing them back to the Earth ? "A lot of the technology required to do that has not yet been demonstrated," says Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University.

"Of course, that's what somebody would have told you about brain surgery or heart surgery before it was actually done. So while this hasn't been demonstrated yet, the only way to do so is to throw a whole lot of money at the problem and to undertake a lot of experiments on Earth and in space."


  View: Full article |  Source: New Scientist

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