Yet the notion of extracting platinum, gold and other valuable minerals from heavenly bodies and propelling them back to Earth is more fiction than science. “The economic analysis doesn’t make sense,” said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center ....

“This is a national issue, and we are going to find far more sites as we go along,” said Christopher Higgins, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, who testified about how the chemicals don’t break down in the environment.

A favorite campus tradition at this small public college is E-Days (or Engineering Days), which takes place every spring and includes a cardboard boat race in a Colorado river.