Asteroids may knock the wind out of platinum producers' sails

If it were cost-competitive with existing production, the discovery of huge new accessible platinum resources could be bad news for platinum miners because it would bring down prices, but would be welcomed by manufacturers of vehicle autocatalysts.

Kieck says asteroid mining and how it would affect platinum producers, said there were countless asteroids circling the sun, mostly grouped between Mars and Jupiter. Many strayed into Earth-crossing orbits, making them relatively accessible.

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There are millions of near-Earth asteroids bigger than 10m and billions larger than 2m. Apart from precious metals, of which platinum group metals are the most abundant, asteroids contain water, oxygen, hydrogen and base metals such as nickel.

"Space mining is becoming a reality more quickly than many would think," he says.

"The idea of exploiting asteroid resources dates back more than 100 years, but it is only now the technology is becoming available to make asteroid mining a possibility.

"Nasa is launching an asteroid sample mission next week, and then aims to drag an asteroid back to earth by 2025.

"Three private companies with road maps for launch, exploration of targets, and the eventual extraction of space resources are in operation. One of these companies, Planetary Resources, is already testing their equipment in space and aims to start mining asteroids within a decade," Kieck says.

"The US passed the 'Asteroid Act' last year, clearing some of the legal hurdles of space mining, while Luxembourg is setting itself up as a hub for asteroid miners."

Outer space development for tourism, habitation or manufacturing was restricted by launch costs of about $10m per tonne of material, but the costs of retrieving raw materials from space would be lower because they required less energy to return to Earth, Kieck says