Space mining gets a boost through Luxembourg’s new law

American asteroid mining companies are allowed to keep their hauls, but what about European outfits? They should be set from now on. Luxembourg (which already has its own space mining tech) has adopted a draft law that gives private operations the...

Inhabitat Week in Green: All the EVs at CES, and more!

Want to see the future of transportation? Look to CES 2016, where innovators debuted the state of the art in high-tech mobility. Chevrolet kicked things off by launching the first electric car for the masses, the 2017 Bolt EV. It gets 200 miles per c...

Here’s what you missed on day four at CES

Day four of CES 2016 was less about consumer products, and more about pie-in-the sky ideas. A company that one day plans to mine asteroids 3D-printed an object out of asteroid dust, just to show how humans might build objects on remote planets. We...

This is the first object 3D-printed from alien metal

So-called "asteroid mining" company Planetary Resources is built on the belief that asteroids and other objects in space are loaded with resources that we can take advantage of, both here on Earth and as we begin to explore space in earnest. The esse...

Planetary Resources and NASA team up to crowdsource the search for asteroids

Planetary Resources and NASA team up to crowdsource the search for asteroids

Planetary Resources really wants to mine asteroids for valuable materials, but first it has to find them. So the company is partnering with NASA on a crowdsourcing project that would put the American public to work identifying and tracking near-Earth-objects (NEOs). All the data generated will be open sourced and made publicly available on the web. The effort will center on a series of challenges and contests designed to lure in citizen scientists and the results will be reviewed by Planetary Resources. Obviously, the company will be looking for mineable hunks of space rock, but it will also be giving back to the scientific community by using the data it collects to improve algorithms for detecting asteroids. And, obviously, the more of those we're able to detect and track, the less likely we are to be caught off guard by a meteorite apocalypse. To be notified when the program kicks off, sign up for more info at the Planetary Resources site.

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Source: Planetary Resources

Don’t miss LeVar Burton, Ben Heck, Adafruit and Planetary Resources at Expand NY!

Don't miss LeVar Burton, Ben Heck, Adafruit and Planetary Resources at Expand NY!

We're getting more and more excited watching the Expand NY agenda come together. We've already announced our first set of speakers (by which we mean people on stage, not those kind of speakers) including legendary game designer Peter Molyneux, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky, io9 editor-in-chief Annalee Newitz and the man responsible for clogging the Internet's tubes with funny cats: Ben Huh.

But wait, there's more! Joining us at Javits Center this November will be:

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ARKYD space telescope reaches its funding goal, new add-ons await (video)

ARKYD space telescope selfie

And communal space astronomy is go. Planetary Resources has successfully hit the $1 million crowdfunding target for its ARKYD telescope, which should now be on track for its promised 2015 launch. The project has also racked up 11,000 backers, and that means a new round of add-ons for the extra-committed. Backers can buy a special mission patch ($7), additional selfie photos (from $25) and even a half-size ARKYD replica ($650). There are a few more pragmatic reasons to invest, of course -- the company has stretch goals that could bring a second ground station, selfies during the beta phase and even hunts for undiscovered planets. Would-be researchers who still want to pitch in can visit Kickstarter by June 30th.

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Source: Kickstarter