Asteroid Mining To Become A Two-Horse Race

Another commercial firm is about to enter the race to mine asteroids for profit. Deep Space Industries is due to reveal its plans to mine asteroids. The announcement will occur later today in Santa Monica's Museum of Flying. Within just two years Deep Space Industries says it will send drones called FireFly to examine asteroids reachable in near-Earth space. Once is has proven the tech and discovered likely mining candidates, DSI will deploy bigger DragonFly vehicles to snag and return samples from the asteroids between 2016 and 2020. Ultimately, DSI's plan is to harvest material from asteroids and construct large structures in space, like communications platforms and solar power collectors. DSI has even patented zero-G 3-D metal printing techniques to help it accomplish its goals. Asteroid farming in this style has long been touted as one of the only ways to create meaningfully la...