Asteroids may yield precious metals, cosmic riches
USING space-faring robots to mine precious metals from asteroids almost sounds easy when former astronaut Tom Jones describes it - practically like clearing a snow-covered driveway.
Jones, an adviser to a bold venture that aims to extract gold, platinum and rocket fuel from the barren space rocks, said many near-Earth asteroids have a loose rocky surface held together only weakly by gravity.
"It shouldn't be too hard to invent a machine like a snow blower to pick up material off these asteroids," explained Jones, a veteran of four space shuttle missions.
But it will be risky and monstrously expensive, which is why some of the biggest and richest names in high-technology - including the barons of Google and filmmaker James Cameron - are behind the project.
If the plan gets off the ground as planned, robots could be extracting cosmic riches within 10 years.
