As our planet's natural resources dwindle, people are beginning to look for creative ways to harvest the necessary ingredients to fuel mankind's progress. Space entrepreneurial company Deep Space Industries is now proposing to send out a fleet of miniature satellites as early as 2015 to scope out potential asteroids for mining.
"Deep Space is building a team with the skills to turn raw asteroids into valuable products. We'll serve in-space markets first, where fuel and materials shipped up from Earth are exceedingly costly," reads Deep Space's website.
Before the company undertakes any actual mining, however, it needs to first identify mining sites with the precious metals needed. To do so, Deep Space, with the help of NASA, will be sending out micro-satellites, known as Fireflies, to determine whether an asteroid is worth mining. The Firefly is a tiny type of satellite, known as a CubeSat, that usually has a volume of one liter and a weight of no more than a couple pounds. CubeSats are used mostly by universities and other research institutions for various studies.
Deep Space then proposes using a "microgravity foundry" to "transform asteroid ore into complex metal parts with a simple 3D printing process."
Asteroids are known to contain large quantities of precious metals, and can be a potential gold mine (literally) for those who get in early. Still, it looks like investors are hesitant to throw money at a project that probably won't see any positive returns for decades.
"It needs serious, deep pockets, execution backing the vision, and far more than PowerPoint designs and pretty pictures to realize this fantastic future of abundance for the human race," Bob Richards, CEO of Moon Express and supporter of the Dream Space venture, told FoxNews.com.
"I've never worked so hard to find investment capital ... and we've only just begun. Pie in the sky? Absolutely. But reachable."
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