A U.S. venture called Planetary Resources, Inc. plans to send swarms of robots to space to scout asteroids for precious metals and set up mines to bring resources back to Earth.

Computer rendition from Planetary Resources, Inc. (File photo)

“The resources of Earth pale in comparison to the wealth of the solar system,” said Eric Anderson, who founded the commercial space tourism company Space Adventures, and is co-founder of a new company along with Peter Diamandis, who started the X Prize foundation, which offers prize-based incentives for advanced technology development.

Space Adventures has sent seven private tourists to the International Space Station while the Ansari X Prize led to a spurt of non-governmental manned spaceships.

Nearly 9,000 asteroids larger than some 50 meters in diameter orbit near the Earth. Some could contain as much platinum as is mined in an entire year on Earth, making them potentially worth several billion dollars each.

In terms of extraction, Planetary Resources hopes to go after the platinum-group metals — which include platinum, palladium, osmium, and iridium — highly valuable commodities used in medical devices, renewable energy products, catalytic converters, and potentially in automotive fuel cells.

Platinum alone is worth around 23,000 dollars about one kg — nearly the same as gold.

Mining the top few feet of a single modestly sized, 810-meter-diameter asteroid could yield around 130 tons of platinum, worth roughly 6 billion dollars.

Within five to seven years, the company hopes to send out a small swarm of similar spacecraft for a more detailed prospecting mission, mapping out a valuable asteroid in detail and identifying rich resource veins. They estimate such a mission will cost between 25 and 30 million dollars. (Agencies)

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet