Asteroid-mining company Deep Space Industries has just announced plans to launch a fleet of "FireFly" spacecraft as soon as 2015. Their mission? Find asteroids, rich with valuable metals, that could aid in humanity's colonization of space.
It will be interesting to see if Deep Space succeeds in mining asteroids. I think it's a great idea, but I would like to know how long they project it will take to mine materials and bring them back to Earth.