Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Asteroid mining

Asteroid mining

Asteroid mining is the process of extracting raw materials such as platinum and titanium metals from near-Earth asteroids and small planets for commercial use either in space projects or on earth. Sometimes referred to as in-situ resource utilization, asteroid mining can also be used to mine water from asteroids and use it as fuel for spacecrafts and drinking water for astronauts living in space. Asteroid mining is made feasible by the latest development in space exploitation technology as well as strong demand for hard-to-find elements that are vital for the manufacturing of modern electronics and other high tech products.

Planetary Resources, a company backed by filmmaker James Cameron, Google co-founder Larry Page and others, announced plans on April 23, 2012 to launch a line of spacecraft to prospect, and eventually extract minerals from, near-Earth asteroids.

This is auto-generated content. You can help to improve it.
0
  • Part of Speech: noun
  • Synonym(s):
  • Blossary:
  • Industry/Domain: Mining
  • Category: Space mining
  • Company:
  • Product:
  • Acronym-Abbreviation:
Collect to Blossary

Member comments

You have to log in to post to discussions.

Terms in the News

Featured Terms

Harry8L
  • 0

    Terms

  • 0

    Blossaries

  • 1

    Followers

Industry/Domain: Religion Category: Islam

Eid al-Adha

Eid al-Adha is a three day Muslim holiday held after the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and is also referred to as 'The Feast of Sacrifice'.It ...

Contributor

Featured blossaries

Psychedelic Drugs

Category: Health   2 20 Terms

Disney Animated Features

Category: Arts   2 20 Terms

Browers Terms By Category