Start-Up Outlines Asteroid-Mining Strategy

A start-up with high-profile backers on Tuesday unveiled its plan to send robotic spacecraft to remotely mine asteroids, a hyper-ambitious effort aimed at opening up a new frontier in space exploration.
At an event at the Seattle Museum of Flight, a group that includes former officials from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration unveiled Planetary Resources Inc. and said it is developing a “low cost” series of spacecraft to prospect and mine “near earth” asteroids for water and metals, thus bringing “the natural resources of space within humanity’s economic sphere of influence.”
The solar system is “full of resources and we can bring that back to humanity,” said Planetary co-founder Peter Diamandis, who helped start the X-Prize competition to spur nongovernmental space flight. The company said it expects to launch its first spacecraft to low-earth orbit—between 100 and 1,000 miles above the earth’s surface—within two years, in what would be a prelude to sending spacecraft to prospect and mine asteroids.
Planetary Resources didn’t immediately say how much money it has raised, how much money it would need, or whether it already has viable technology to prospect and mine an asteroid.