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http://www.planetaryresources.com/2012/04/asteroid-mining-plans-revealed-by-planetary-resources-inc/

See also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0c9oZh4vTo

On some absolute scale (perhaps the long view), this is huge...

Love it, hope they are wildly successful. This could really be one of the most beneficial steps for human space flight since Apollo.

The doors that have blocked so much in past have been blown open by free thinkers who are not having government
roadblocks get in the their way. This is the future of space travel and I really hope this gets off the ground
sooner then later. Just had my son watch and and his eyes lit up knowing if he puts an effort into it, he could
become a part of the greatest challenge in history.

I am hoping to be an investor .


Bullet

It's about darn time. This kind of big thinking and innovation are what put men on the moon, and the fact that it's privatized and not just government run is also a good thing. Though I'll be curious to see how the FAA changes to fill the role of providing safety and oversight.

Kinda like the TSA, lets hope they keep their collective noses out of it.

Yeah, you're dreaming if you believe that. These guys could potentially drop an asteroid on a city if they screw up. There will most definitely be national and probably international oversight/regulation.

Edit: Just to be clear, that asteroid would explode with megatons of force - basically dropping a nuke wherever it lands.

Exactly what I was getting at, Speedo. Not to mention if there's going to be a manned component, it would be nice to have some kind of oversight for safety inspections, etc.

Something like this will obviously have huge political and economic implications. For example, the article mentions how one 500 meter asteroid with plantinum contains more platinum than has ever been mined in history. If that's the case, I can see the market for many precious metals being flooded and hence, massive price drops.

Then there's the question of sharing the wealth. Will this work similar to oil leases where the national government gets a certain percentage of the proceeds from the sale of these metals? Who or what determines which private companies can go into space and prospect for these asteroids?

This section from the article caught my attention,

"Many of the scarce metals and minerals on Earth are in near-infinite quantities in space. As access to these materials increases, not only will the cost of everything from microelectronics to energy storage be reduced, but new applications for these abundant elements will result in important and novel applications,” said Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc."

But what if it costs the same amount of money to mine the asteroid as it has cost to mine all the platinum in earth's history?