Showing posts with label Mining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mining. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2015
Senate Votes To Legalize The Mining of Asteroids
After much delay, an important space bill has finally passed in the Senate.
The Space Act of 2015 would do a lot of things to encourage the private space industry--including extending the "learning period" wherein fledgling spaceflight companies can operate without too much government oversight. It would also give companies the rights to the resources they might one day extract from asteroids, such as platinum and water (which, believe it or not, is a valuable resource in space).
The bill has just passed in the Senate with unanimous approval and a few amendments. Now it will be sent back to the House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the changes, and then on to President Obama. [...]
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Mining an Asteroid – Private Spaceflight Company Takes First Steps
A private spaceflight company took one small step for asteroid mining this week with the launch of its first spacecraft to test technology that may one day help tap into the riches of the solar system.
The Arkyd 3 Reflight spacecraft, a small satellite built by the space-mining company Planetary Resources, launched from the International Space Station on Thursday (July 16), beginning a 90-day mission to test the avionics, control systems and software needed to make asteroid mining possible.
Planetary Resources first tried to launch a version of the satellite into orbit last October, but that spacecraft was lost when the commercial Antares rocket carrying it and supplies for the space station exploded shortly after liftoff.
