Asteroids like these could be farmed for minerals in the next decade (Creative Commons/Sweetie187)

By 2015, Deep Space chairman Ron Sumlinson hopes to send lightweight "FireFly" spaceships to prospect asteroids for their mineral potential.

"We can make amazing machines smaller, cheaper and faster than ever before," Tumlinson said. "Imagine a production line of FireFlies, cocked and loaded and ready to fly out to examine any object that gets near the Earth."

If the 55-pounds FireFlies are sucessful, the next step would be for bigger "DragonFlies" to come in and get samples from the asteroids and bring them back to Earth.

Eventually, the goal for Deep Space would be to have even largers vessels farm the asteroids for high value precious metals, minerals and even water.

Of course, Deep Space isn't the only company interested in mining asteroids. Plantary Resources announced last year that it would begin a similar operation to procure minerals and has the financial backing of Google CEO Larry Page and director James Cameron.

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