'Space cannon' to be fired into asteroid

Japanese craft to fire "space cannon" into asteroid in search for origins of the universe

• asteroid identified as 1999JU3 that orbits between Earth and Mars
• Once in position ..., the space cannon will .... fire a 4lb metal projectile into the surface...by acquiring samples .... exposed by the collision, we can ....get ...samples that are less weathered by the space environment
• Hayabusa-2 is the second project to recover particles from deep space and will build on the success of Hayabusa, which in 2010 gathered surface dust from an asteroid and returned to Earth.

Comment:

Somebody out there is going to mine asteroids some day.   That's where this is headed.

The amount of material that can be obtained from space will dwarf anything we can obtain from Earth.  Most of Earth is inaccessible to us.