In what is being seen as a major breakthrough \u00a0the government of Luxembourg has thrown its financial muscle behind plans to extract resources from asteroids, some of which are rich in platinum and other valuable metals. It plans to team up with private companies to help speed the progress of the industry and draw up a regulatory framework for it.<\/p>\n
One such firm,\u00a0Deep Space Industries, wants to send small satellites, called Fireflies, into space from 2017 to prospect for minerals and ice. The satellites would hitch a ride on a rocket, and larger craft would then be used to harvest, transport and store raw materials.<\/p>\n
Metals such as nickel and iron, which are plentiful on Earth, could be processed while in orbit and used to build equipment or spacecraft. And it may eventually be possible to extract valuable minerals from asteroids cheaply enough for it to be worth bringing them back to Earth.<\/p>\n
Rival\u00a0Planetary Resources\u00a0has a slightly different plan, in which telescopes would be used to analyse asteroids before craft were sent to mine them. Its backers include Google co-founder Larry Page and billionaire businessman Ross Perot, and it thinks it could be operating in space by 2025.<\/p>\n