This illustration made available by NASA in April 2020 depicts Artemis astronauts on the Moon. On Thursday, April 30, 2020, NASA announced the three companies that will develop, build and fly lunar landers, with the goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2024.
It’s the stuff of science fiction: Blasting off to the moon or an asteroid, drilling it, mining its resources and bringing some or all back to Earth. But, as we have our sights set on returning to the moon, that fiction is getting closer to becoming a reality.This illustration shows future astronauts exploring the moon.
"There's going to be space mining that occurs in the lunar environment within the next 10 years to make water and oxygen and other key consumables for space exploration." "When it comes to asteroids, we're really interested in a group of elements we call the PGEs. Those are the platinum group elements of which one is the element platinum," said Osinski, who is the