Asteroid mining, a business venture derided as kooky science when it first surfaced, has just gotten respectable with Luxembourg's announcement it plans to start its own asteroid mining operation over the next five years.

Luxembourg or the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is that quaint European nation known more as a tax haven and a haven for castles (it's got one castle per square mile). Its citizens are called Luxembourgers and the national tongue is called Luxembourgish. Luxembourg is also the least populated country in the European Union.

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Luxembourg is now working on joint missions with two U.S. asteroid mining companies to prospect for water and minerals in asteroids using robotic spacecraft that will identify, scan and mine these mineral laden rocks.

Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Economy, Minister of Internal Security, Minister of Defense, said his country intends to become a global center for asteroid mining. Luxembourg is devoting huge financial resources to develop asteroid mining through its national investment bank and government research and development grants.

Partnering with Luxembourg are the American companies, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, Inc. that both have announced their intentions to mine near-Earth asteroids.

Deep Space Industries is developing spacecraft technologies needed for asteroid mining and is selling satellites using these technologies. It plans to make in-space materials extracted from asteroids commercially available in the early 2020s. Its headquarters in is California.

Based in Washington State, Planetary Resources was formed in November 2010 to expand Earth's natural resource base by developing and deploying technologies for asteroid mining. Key investors in this company are Google co-founder Larry Page; Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google's parent company, Alphabet; director James Cameron and Ross Perot, Jr., son of former U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot.

Luxembourg and Deep Space Industries are working to build Prospector-X, a small and experimental spacecraft that will test technologies to be used to send robotic explorers to investigate asteroids after 2020. Prospector-X will also test the ability of sensitive electronic components to withstand the destructive radiation flooding outer space.

Prospector-X will be built in Luxembourg. Included in its payload is a 3D imaging and navigation system developed at the University of Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is also in the final stages of negotiations with Planetary Resources for using the latter's asteroid mining technologies.

Water will be the first resource to be mined on asteroids. This because water is essential for astronauts and also because water can be converted into rocket fuel aboard spacecraft.

"Luxembourg makes a huge difference by stepping in," said DSI chairman Rick Tumlinson. "It immediately shatters the myths that asteroid mining is either the fantasy of a wealthy Silicon Valley cabal or an imperialist American plot to take over the solar system."

TagsLuxembourg, asteroid mining, Etienne Schneider, Deep Space Industries, Planetary Resources, Inc., Prospector-X