Two private space firms received contract from NASA to get ready for and finally execute missions to land on and mine asteroids for valuable resources. The two private firms with which NASA has contracted are Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources.

With the aim of extracting valuable resources, both the firms have been making plans to launch asteroid-landing probes for months-long stints on near Earth objects.

There is possibility that such expeditions could theoretically come back to Earth with valuable minerals. The financial practicability of the concept depends on the prospects of supplying other space missions with extracted assets.

With a series of deep space missions planned in the coming century, there is possibility that NASA would save time and money by supplying some of those missions, including International Space Station expeditions with essential resources mined from asteroids.

Deep Space CEO Daniel Faber said in a press release earlier this year that Deep Space provides commercial insight to NASA's asteroid planning because their business is based on supplying what commercial customers in Earth orbit require to operate and also their company serves NASA's requirements for its moon and Mars exploration.

Faber said fuel, water, and metals that they will harvest and process will be sold in both markets by making accessible industrial quantities of material for increasing space applications and services.

"Right now it costs $17 million per ton to get anything up to geosynchronous orbit. If we can beat whatever that price is in 2022, we'll have a big market", David Gump, vice-chairman of Deep Space, told The Boston Globe.

Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer of Planetary Resources, said that by harnessing the public's interest in space and asteroid detection, they can more rapidly identify the potential threats and the opportunities also.