The Challenge
The bottleneck is intelligence, not propulsion
Asteroid resource utilization is constrained by decision uncertainty.
Each reconnaissance or mining mission represents $100M–$10B in capital risk. Yet target selection still relies on sparse observations, manual expert judgment, and heuristic assumptions.
High Mission Failure Risk
Resource abundance, extractability, and tool–environment compatibility remain poorly quantified
Over-Engineered Systems
Uncertainty drives conservative designs that add mass, cost, and complexity
Capital Inefficiency
Investment decisions driven by uncertainty rather than physics and data
