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Top Ten Reasons to Inhabit Outer Space
By Yasha Husain
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 01:51 pm ET
21 July 2000
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reason_07_000723 7. Mining "If we strip-mine the asteroids rather than the rainforests its much better for us," said Richard Godwin. "The moon-crossing asteroids are very easy to get to. They have low gravitational pull and are easy to get back from. It would be an issue of going out there and mining them," he said. He acknowledged there are major issues involving mining in space, but feels that the benefits far outweigh the challenges. Godwin thinks water is the most precious substance you can find in space. As Gregg Maryniak put it, "everywhere we look there is water." They've been finding it on the moon and Mars, and many of the asteroids have it too. Maryniak said that as it stands, we know how to utilize the water if we choose to. Other than water, Godwin said there is a platinum asteroid that is worth about $5 trillion or $6 trillion, as well as an asteroid that has more steel in it than all the iron on Earth. "Were currently finding as many asteroids in a week as we did in a year," according to Maryniak. Peter Kokh said that learning how to produce metals and other elements from what mining specialists call poor ores will help us develop technology to allow countries poor in mineral resources to economically tap what they have, and thus reduce the gap between have and have-not nations. Elements that are concentrated in ore veins are easier to tap. In many parts of the Third World elements exist, but not in ore veins. Kokh said chemical engineers will be needed to spearhead this work. Eventually, he believes, mining asteroids will allow humans access to infinite raw materials, like poor ores that are culled from the reluctant Earth.
To Secure a Future for HumanityTo Build a New FrontierTo Find New Energy SourcesTo Build an Industrial Settlement On the MoonBetter Quality Images of the Universe -- and More of ThemThe SETI EffortMiningLearning the History of Our Universe On the MoonEnvironmental BenefitsMeeting the Challenge
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