Asteroid mining

A Tiny, Water-Powered Spacecraft Could Be the First to Mine Asteroids

A few months back, Luxembourg—a tiny country better known for world-class pastries—announced its intention to become a leader in asteroid mining. Now, Luxembourg has revealed the first step in its plan to fill the banking vaults with space-grade platinum: a small, water-powered spacecraft. https://gizmodo.com/luxembourg-wants-to-be-a-world-leader-in-asteroid-minin-1756860361 In partnership with the California-based asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone May 6

A New Sensor Can Sniff Out Gold Inside Space Rocks

There’s gold in them thar asteroids—if only we could find it. Well, and get to it, extract it, and haul it back to Earth. You know, details. But that first part just got easier, thanks to a clever new sensor designed to sniff out gold, platinum, and even diamond inside asteroids. The sensor, technically a…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Nov 20

Antarctica May Hold the Key to Regulating Mining in Space

Our current era may go down in history as the century of space exploration and off-Earth resource exploitation. But there are still considerable policy hurdles to overcome in terms of how we regulate such activities. As we turn our eyes to the skies, we should also look south to Antarctica to gain some insight into…

io9 Juan Francisco Salazar—The Conversation Aug 10

The Most Important Thing We Will Need to Survive In Space

None of us would be alive today without plants, and if humans want to survive beyond Earth long-term, we’ll need to bring our leafy greens with us. Eventually, astronauts are going to have to become space farmers. There’s an obvious argument for growing plants in space: unless we want to pack enough shrink-wrapped protein bars…

Tech News Maddie Stone Jun 18

Dust from Asteroid Mining Could Turn Into Another Space Junk Hazard

There is gold out there on asteroids. Silver and platinum and titanium, too. And if we’re seriously going to mine asteroids, it might be easier to tow them closer to Earth. But that could be serious trouble for satellites, according to new calculations by astrophysicists. NASA was recently considering an Asteroid Redirect Mission, where it…

Space & Spaceflight Sarah Zhang May 28

How Asteroid Mining Could Pay for Our First Space Colony

Many of us dream of living on other planets, but are two things we’ll need before it can actually happen: money and raw materials. Now some companies say they have a solution to this problem. They’ll mine asteroids for valuable metal ores, and for basic resources like water that we’ll need once we’re far from…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Feb 17

Japan’s Decade-Long Mission to Mine an Asteroid

1999 JU3: It doesn’t sound like a very noteworthy name. It’s just one of more than 5,000 Apollo-class asteroids. But 1999 JU3 could become a household name if Japan succeeds in mining it—a mission that JAXA has struggled with for decades, often disastrously. And on Sunday, it revealed the probe that could redeem it. Four…

Space & Spaceflight Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Sep 2

Asteroid Miners Will Launch World’s First Crowdfunded Space Telescope

Planetary Resources – the people behind the recently announced asteroid-mining venture – has just announced a brand new project: the world’s first crowdfunded space telescope, to be financed with a just-launched Kickstarter campaign. The company’s primary goal has always been, and remains, asteroid mining; and to that end, it’s developing a class of asteroid-surveying space…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez May 29

A heartbreaking short about a mother’s loss, set in a lunar mine

Shona has spent two tours working a dangerous lunar mine so she can pay for her daughter’s expensive medical treatments. But the ultimate loss comes while she’s still on the job, and Shona isn’t sure she can return to Earth. Joe Sill’s short film Expo relies heavily on the sense of isolation and separation from…

io9 Lauren Davis May 18

Asteroid mining could be against the law

Leave it to lawyers to ruin the party. Just a week after James Cameron and Google announced their plans to extract water and precious metals from nearby asteroids comes a warning from a space law expert who says the paperwork isn’t quite done yet. We need to improve the legal framework, he says, before we…

io9 George Dvorsky Apr 30

It’s Official: Planetary Resources Unveils Plans for Asteroid-Mining

A recently announced space venture backed by James Cameron, Google executives, and others isn’t scheduled to formally announce its plans until later today, but as of late last night, the news is official: Planetary Resources, Inc. is fixing to do some asteroid-mining. Here’s everything we know about the venture so far. https://gizmodo.com/is-james-camerons-next-big-venture-asteroid-mining-5903345 This is big…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 24

Asteroid mining will give us all the platinum we’ll ever need, and maybe start a new Space Age

The platinum group metals are crucial to electronics, massively expensive, and extremely rare on this planet. But on asteroids? A single one holds billions of pounds of these metals – and that could start the era of private space exploration. Platinum is the most famously expensive of these metals – it’s generally held up in…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jul 19

A Tiny, Water-Powered Spacecraft Could Be the First to Mine Asteroids

A New Sensor Can Sniff Out Gold Inside Space Rocks

Antarctica May Hold the Key to Regulating Mining in Space

The Most Important Thing We Will Need to Survive In Space

Dust from Asteroid Mining Could Turn Into Another Space Junk Hazard

How Asteroid Mining Could Pay for Our First Space Colony

Japan’s Decade-Long Mission to Mine an Asteroid

Asteroid Miners Will Launch World’s First Crowdfunded Space Telescope

A heartbreaking short about a mother’s loss, set in a lunar mine

Asteroid mining could be against the law

It’s Official: Planetary Resources Unveils Plans for Asteroid-Mining

Asteroid mining will give us all the platinum we’ll ever need, and maybe start a new Space Age

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