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How Close Are We To Mining Asteroids?

Asteroids, those rocky fragments circling the sun, can contain water, oxygen, precious metals and other elements that could be used to produce fuel and life-support systems in space -- all at a much lower cost than ferrying them from Earth. There are hundreds of thousands of asteroids, ranging in size from large boulders to miniature planets hundreds of miles across. Extracting these resources will be expensive and hugely difficult -- imagine trying to drill into a large rock hurtling through space at high speed -- but several private companies believe they're up to the task.