A study conducted by Gregory Matioff, an adjunct professor of physics at the New York City College of Technology, suggests the best way to travel to Mars might be to hitch a ride on a passing asteroid.

Some still question the utility of mounting human missions to near Earth asteroids. Lou Friedman discusses not only why such missions are important, but also why the timetable for them should be accelerated.

Since the beginning of the Space Age, space programs have been adjuncts of national policy rather than self-sustaining ventures in their own right. Nader Elhefnawy discusses how a shift to space resource exploitation could alter that formula, depending on national and international politics.

A pair of NASA astronauts has unveiled a design for an innovative space tug that could one day save the world by nudging a potentially threating asteroid out of the Earth's path.

Future space explorers might bring back more than just pictures from their excursions -- they could mine the planets for profit.

One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century will be to promote prosperity and stability throughout the developing world. Gregory Anderson describes how the potentially vast resources of the solar system can accomplish this while furthering free enterprise.

A former American astronaut argues that NASA should shift its focus to asteroids, both to defend against impacts and also a stepping stone to space expansion.

The U.S. state department rejected a property rights claim to a near earth asteroid by a U.S. based space development company according to this press release.

While the "pickings" might be good for mining the Moon or crushing up asteroids, creating markets and making money on the space frontier currently is more prophet than profit.

Space Experts at a recent roundtable at the Colorado School of Mines argued that a "miner" breakthrough is needed to develop and utilize the resources of space, be they from asteroids, the Moon or Mars. The solar system is a heaven-sent treasure trove -- a bounty, ready and waiting, of metals and materials that can fortify humankind's outward reach into the cosmos.