VIDEO: Mining asteroids for gold and platinum: Details have been emerging of the plan by billionaire entrepreneurs to mine asteroids for their resources.
and
Mining Asteroids: Not Mankind's Silver Bullet : Discovery News: Now that Google's top brass, a rich Hollywood director, an astronaut and space entrepreneur are on board, it must mean that asteroid mining is just around the corner! Untold riches are about to flood the streets. Hell, we'll soon be able to pave those streets in platinum!
Although Tuesday's exciting announcement that the asteroid mining start-up Planetary Resources has attracted some very high-profile investors and advisers, it's probably a good idea to take a step back and understand why we don't already have refineries attached to near-Earth asteroids.
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Is Asteroid Mining Legal? | Does Google CEOs' New Plan to Mine an Asteroid Violate Space Law? | Space.com:
"The law on this is not settled and not clear," said Henry Hertzfeld,
professor of space policy and international affairs at George Washington
University. "There are lots of opinions on the status here, and nobody
is necessarily right because it's complicated."
The
legal ambiguity hasn't needed to be addressed before, Hertzfeld said,
because no company has previously come forward with a serious asteroid
mining mission plan and the funds to back it. When the debate over space
property rights is forced to ensue, old international wounds will
likely be reopened.''
At best we slam an astroid into the Northpole to be sure of heating up the climate and not to be living like the amish people to avoid that, and we gain a lot of precious metals.
