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The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, although it is dwarf a state whose population is thirty times smaller than that of the Russian capital, but ambitions in space exploration for him, apparently not to borrow.
Scientists of the Western European country gathered to do mining minerals on asteroids. These celestial bodies are known to contain metals and other valuable raw materials, which today are no longer missing on our planet.
Luxembourg will not act alone – implement its plan he will be assisted by the European Space Agency and NASA, as well as private American companies “Planetary Resources” and “Deep Space Industries “engaged in the development of technologies for industrial mastering asteroids.
It’s hard to say why Luxembourg decided to do this. project. It’s one thing to launch a rover or an automatic interplanetary station, and quite another – to drill mines on moving with great speed asteroids. Americans annually declare that they’re about to start mining minerals on asteroids, however, not a single gram of extraterrestrial has yet been delivered to Earth raw materials.
How realistic is this at the current level of technical development
Skeptical representatives of the world scientific communities argue that energy costs for industrial Asteroid exploration will be too large and exceed all revenues from such an activity. Perhaps for this reason, Roskosmos and does not race for the “space Eldorado.”
According to Luxembourg experts, they are interested in asteroids, located between the moon and mars. In theory on these celestial bodies it will be possible to send unmanned aerial vehicles that and will be engaged in extracting valuable planets from the bowels of the planet metal ore and various minerals. According to experts, between the natural satellite of the earth and the red planet constantly moving about twelve thousand asteroids, the vast most of which are undoubted for humanity value.
European Space Agency Director Jean-Jacques Dorden reports that Luxembourg has all the necessary scientific and economic potential to bring to life so fatalistic project, the more it will be of considerable help not only the EU, but also the USA.
According to preliminary estimates of scientists, only at the start of this Luxembourg mission will have to spend several tens of billions dollars.
Mars
