The quest to mine space for precious resources continues, as a new company called Deep Space Industries announced plans to launch a series of spacecraft with the purpose of collecting resources and turning them into fuel with the help of 3D printers.
That sentence sounds ridiculous, yes, but with the help of NASA and other companies, there's a chance the concept will actually make it off the launch pad.
The plan begins with a set of small, 55-pound spacecraft called "FireFlies" that, when launched, will search near-earth space territory for potential mining targets. These trips will last between two and six months, and Deep Space is hoping to send its first one into orbit in 2015.
"My smartphone has more computing power than they had on the Apollo moon missions," said Deep Space Chairman Rick Tumlinson in a press release. "We can make amazing machines smaller, cheaper, and faster than ever before. Imagine a production line of FireFlies, cocked and loaded and ready to fly out to examine any object that gets near the Earth."
Only one year later, the company intends to launch larger, 70-pound spacecraft called "DragonFlies." These rockets will head out for missions that span two to four years, depending on how far they need to travel, and are expected to haul back up to 150 lbs of material.
The best part isn't even here yet, because apparently the company has patented technology to develop a 3D printer that works in zero gravity, meaning that both the mining and conversion into usable resources will occur out in space and not on earth.
The ultimate goal is to make space travel easier by developing the ability to refuel ships at any point during travel, using resources mined from asteroids in the surrounding area. Think of these mining spacecraft as space-based gas stations that passing ships could extract fuel from. Launching rockets from earth would suddenly become much easier, too, since they wouldn't need to be pre-packed with all the necessary fuel.
"Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development," said CEO David Gump. "More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century - a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy."
As a reminder that asteroid mining is more than just a science fiction fantasy, last year another company called Planetary Resources, backed by moguls like James Cameron and Google's Larry Page, was formed with the intention of undertaking a similar mission.
