"I think we've got to the point where people are saying 'Yeah, I think we can do this,'" said Andrew Dempster from the Australian Centre for Space Engineering.
Costs are Sky-high
Like the challenges, the costs are substantial: to transport one kilogram to the moon is $100,000, and none of the cutting-edge completely automated technology comes cheap.
One delegate, NASA affiliate Berok Khoshnevis from the University of Southern California, has developed technology to make waterless sulphur-based cement from the loose rubble on Mars and Earth's moon.
Matthew Dunbabin, from the Australia's government's science agency CSIRO, has done a large-scale simulation of using mining machinery in space and told delegates the main issue was electrical power.
Few space missions had attempted significant excavations -- the sum total of all NASA's Apollo missions had been 382 kilograms and the Mars program had netted in the order of "grams," Dunbabin said.
Gravity, temperatures, atmospheric pressure, radiation and the consistency of surfaces themselves all present unique problems, complicated by the fact that operations in space would have to be largely automated and remote-controlled.
Space drilling also throws up the question: who owns the moon's resources?
SingTel Optus lawyer Donna Lawler likened it to the law of the high seas, where energy firms can mine in international waters without claiming territorial ownership.
More than 100 countries including the U.S. have ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which holds signatory nations responsible for activities in space but it is as yet untested.
It may be soon if space mining joins the moon landings in the annals of science fiction-turned-reality.
"There's nothing really science fiction about any of this. In many ways a lot of the technology already exists, I don't think we really have to invent much science," said Dempster.
Amy Coopes, AFP
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2013
