Monday, May 7, 2012

Space merchants and planetary mining

Planetary Resources hopes to extract water ice and metals from near
Earth asteroids, while other companies are interested in mining such
resources from the Moon [Planetary Resources].
Ayodele Faiyetole
The Space Review

"The exhaustible mineral resources on Earth and their almost infinite deposits, by comparison, on the different planetary bodies in our solar system is fast leading to the development of a whole new industry spearheaded by exploratory-entrepreneurial visionaries. These space merchants, like the British who prospected America as a tobacco plantation, have conceived that the outer space holds the prospects for some of the world’s most valuable minerals that could be exploited for usage here on Earth and beyond."

"The Moon miners: Moon Express, Inc., which was selected by Forbes as one of the 15 “Names You Need to Know” in 2011, has made known its interest in prospecting outer space for resources since its formation in 2010. On April 23, the Google Lunar X PRIZE contender announced it had successfully delivered its Preliminary Design Checkpoint Technical Package to NASA under its $10-million Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data (ILDD) contract, providing NASA continuing data on the development of the company’s commercial lunar robotic missions and plans to mine the Moon. MoonEx, as Moon Express is also known, was selected in 2010 for this data buy contract, which happens only after technology is demonstrated at the company’s own risk. Technology luminaries Naveen Jain and Barney Pell teamed up with space visionary Robert Richards to form MoonEx based at the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley."

Read the full article HERE.
Related Posts:

First, kill all the lawyers (May 1, 2012)
Staking a claim on the Moon (April 12, 2012)
Bolden: Moon to be a private colony (April 12, 2012)
A Rationale for Cislunar Space (April 12, 2011)

1 comment:

greenland mining services said...

Its your gratefulness for affixing and giving out your blog with all of us its really intersting and informative .