Very cool and all, but still illegal by international law to actually use.

Who finances these ludicrous business plans? Assuming you found an asteroid made of solid gold, your cost per kilogram of mining it would exceed three times the current market's gold prices.

@Toffe Kaal
When they have technology in place, the greed will change the law.
The same principle applies for the surveillance technology and privacy.

To my knowledge, Toffe, there is no international law against mining asteroids. No one has ownership over them. We haven't even divided up the moon between anyone yet.
I'm of the opinion that space needs to be divided up not between nations, but between individuals and corporations who are going to use the given resources in an area, whether for habitation or resources.

This is another stupid idea. We have higher and higher energy costs globally, so now we're going to blast off into space to retrieve rocks. Resource efficiency is the answer, not getting more waste stored on Earth

I'm surprised at the lack of vision from some posters.

In order to make off-planet industry possible, the resources will have to be found "out there". This is kind of a chicken/egg problem, as lifting the materials from Earth to construct space habitats is too expensive. What Planetary Resources is doing is going to make space-based society possible.
Mining asteroids is one thing, but the same technologies will also make it possible to turn smaller asteroids into habitats. While there will be a movement toward planetary colonization, space habitats off-planet will also develop.

Mark K: I can't say that I'm surprised at all.
What some people don't get is that the value of raw materials in orbit is equal to the value of the materials on earth, plus the cost to lift them into orbit. When you consider that Planetary Resources is focusing on platinum and related metals, that value will be very high indeed.
The value of a metric ton of platinum is roughly 54 million dollars on earth, plus another 5-10 million dollars for launch costs.
There's also the boost to science that their efforts will produce. We're going to find out a LOT more about near earth asteroids, and we'll also have swarms of space telescopes out there that can do astronomical observations in their spare time.

re; JBar
There are metals more valuable than gold and have high temperature structure caricaturists that makes for easy reentry and landing of the material. Titanium spheres almost always make it to the ground intact.

Well according to my ex who have a Phd in International law. It states that no planets or asteroids may be claimed by government's as land and asteroids may only be used for scientific use. Not mining. But I am sure this will change but as it stands now it is illegal, even for USA. But it is also pointed out that no one cares for this law and no one will enforce it. But USA seams to be sooo big on enforcing the illegal downloading in other countries that it be eager to uphold other laws...(LOL)
But I think asteroid mining is a good idea if the frame work for prospecting gets a clear set of easy good rules. Like that you have to land an object onto the asteroid to claim it..then send in a claim to a central claim agency.. then if the asteroid isnt started being full-scale mine with in 5 years the claim is forfeit..or some thing like that.
Also to add value to the metal that you mine is that you have manufacture of certain specialised materials that can only be done in micro g (0 G).