/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3314328
please do! Up link below if you can too:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1159224

>>3314355
Let's see here...

There's the Hayabusa(pic related) sample return mission, though they haven't determined if they even have a good enough sample. There's quite a bit we don't know about asteroids, we're not entirely sure of composition and make up. And we need to know all this before we can mine them.
Hayabusa might provide some clues into this.

There were some presentations on asteroid mining at Space Manufacturing 14.(presentations online)
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/10/30/ssi-space-manufacturing-14-extraterrestrial-prospecting-sessi
on/

A recent paper suggested some asteroids could have molten cores.
http://geology.com/news/2011/do-some-asteroids-have-a-molten-core.shtml

Recent observations seem to suggest that some asteroids might have ice on them. Ice is really important if you want to do refining in space. Water makes all sorts of extraction processes possible. Hydrogen can be used to reduce metallic oxides and a whole bunch of other fun stuff.

Organic stuff is also good for that too.

You could also talk about NASA's plan to visit asteroids, etc