Digging up ore on an asteroid 50 to 500 metres wide in zero
gravity will be a tough task, even for robots. What technology will you
use?CL: The data the 300-series gathers will allow us to design the
mining spacecraft. There are many, many different options for that. They could
vary from very small spacecraft that swarm and cooperate on a bunch of tasks, to
very large spacecraft that look seriously industrial. Before we can begin the
detailed design of a mining spacecraft, we need to actually go there, explore
the asteroid and learn where the specific opportunities are.
