He declined to estimate when Planetary Resources would begin extracting metals or water from space rocks, saying there are too many variables to lay out a firm timeline. But a recent study sponsored by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies estimated that a 500-ton near-Earth asteroid could be snagged and dragged to the moon's orbit by 2025, at a cost of about $2.6 billion.Comment:
This looks like a serious business plan. You can stop laughing now.
Update:
More here from wsj h/t transterrestrial musings
Mr. Lewis, whose 1997 book, "Mining the Sky," helped popularize the idea of extracting natural resources from asteroids, said Planetary's president already owns a small firm that builds spacecraft.
Comment:
The criticism seems to be that it will cost too much to be viable. But that overlooks the possibility that this could be overcome, maybe soon. At any rate, it is no more costly than deep sea drilling. It costs billions to build an offshore drilling platform. Even at today's launch prices, this is not projected to cost any more than that.
Update:
Wired also has a story. Some of the challenges are discussed.
An interesting point is that the best economical move is for the mining to be used for those already in space- not to bring it to the ground.
The key advantage is to get out of the deep gravity well of Earth in order to get stuff that you need. It is very expensive to launch from Earth, so anything that mitigates this cost is a big deal.
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