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Against all odds, an asteroid mining company (AstroForge) appears to be making headway (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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On Tuesday the co-founders announced that they have successfully raised $40 million in Series A funding and shared plans for their next two missions. AstroForge has now raised a total of $55 million to date.

...

However, Gialich said AstroForge learned a lot from this mission and is working toward launching a second spacecraft named Odin. This will be a rideshare payload on the Intuitive Machines-2 mission, which is due to launch during the fourth quarter of this year. If successful, the Odin mission would be spectacular. About seven months after launching, Odin will attempt to fly by a near-Earth, metallic-rich asteroid while capturing images and taking data—truly visiting terra incognita. Odin would also be the first private mission to fly by a body in the Solar System beyond the Moon.

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On Tuesday, the company also announced plans for its third mission, Vestri (the company is naming its missions after Norse deities). This spacecraft will be about twice as large as Odin and is intended to return to the targeted metallic asteroid and dock with it. The docking mechanism is simple—since the asteroid is likely to be iron-rich, Vestri will use magnets to attach itself.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Climate change is threatening to potentially be an extinction level event and yet Americans keep buying bigger and bigger tank sized vehicles.... If we can't even be bothered to save ourselves by addressing climate change now then I think there is virtually zero chance that we will ever colonize space or other planets.