And he was a very important contributor to the early Mars missions and to the general interest in planetary exploration.

NPR: Revisiting the Viking Missions to Mars

Despite the early financial support from wealthy investors and the backing of well-known space-exploration researchers, Planetary Resources faces many technical questions and uncertainties about costs and the technology required to extract materials from asteroids.

WSJ: Planetary's Plan to Mine an Asteroid

The decreased allocation of funds to NASA programs was reported in the press as early as Feb. 13, lowering available funds for planetary science programs that support Mars exploration and missions to outer planets in the Solar System.

FORBES: NASA, Got Space Exploration? Get Goals, Get Funding and Get Uhura.

This unlikely sounding collaboration is taking place between researchers interested in exploring Lake Vostok in Antarctica, which is sealed off below several kilometres of ice, and planetary scientists, who see such exploration as a possible dress rehearsal for a future robotic mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, whose icy surface is thought to conceal vast oceans that might harbour extraterrestrial life.

ECONOMIST: Planetary pretenders

At present, British government policy specifically bars any public programmes connected with human spaceflight, and it has directed that any monies instead go towards the robotic exploration of space - for example in Earth observation and unmanned planetary probes.

BBC: RELATED BBC SITES