TORONTO – Depressed commodity prices aren’t stopping one mining company at PDAC from settings its sights high – beyond orbit, actually.
Planetary Resources, Inc. stands out among the companies only at that year’s mining convention because its focus is extracting resources from asteroids. While the idea might seem outlandish, the firm counts former NASA engineers among its ranks and is backed by a few high profile investors, including Google co-founder Larry Page.
The company is currently testing its technology through satellite launches, which it hopes will eventually result in harvesting ores from near-earth asteroids.
“The next resource frontier is outer space,” said Chris Lewicki, president and chief executive of Planetary Resources. “We’re prospecting the best resource within the mining industry.”
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Lewicki certainly has the resum to support his ambitious goals. He was NASA’s flight director for that Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and was the surface mission director for the agency’s Phoenix lander.
Planetary Resources isn’t aiming to put drilling rigs into space immediately, however. Instead, its initial focus is on developing foundational technology as a proof of concept.
Last year, the organization launched the Arkyd 3 Reflight spacecraft, which served like a test of the control systems and software that will be required to mine asteroids. The Reflight designation was utilized because the original Arkyd 3 was destroyed after an Antares rocket that carried it blew up seconds after launch.
Lewicki’s ultimate goal is for the technology his company is now developing for use in building the infrastructure necessary for the colonization of space. He explained that although it will be possible to bring the ores mined to earth, ultimately, he hopes they’ll be utilized in establishing permanent human habitats beyond earth.
“Eventually humans will be expanding the economy into the solar system,” he said.
