(Kitco News) Space mining and terrestrial mining have a lot in common and the latest developments in the space mining industry offer lucrative opportunities to terrestrial miners that shouldn’t be overlooked, according to one industry expert.
NASA has been pouring millions of dollars into early-stage research and development projects, which the mining industry has been neglecting, Deltion Innovations CEO Dale Boucher told Kitco News.
“There’s an awful lot of money being thrown into very early-stage R&D that is specific to space mining. For example, the Canadian space agency spent millions of dollars to figure out very small drilling tools,” Boucher said.
“If we take that R&D money and say to the mining industries that we can adapt this technology to their operations and improve their return on investment, either at an existing mine or a new mine, then it becomes almost a no-brainer.”
Today’s mining industry does not invest in that early research as much as before because it became much more risk-averse. This is where the space mining industry comes in.
For the rest of this article: https://www.kitco.com/news/2021-03-18/Space-mining-is-critical-for-terrestrial-mining-here-s-why.html