Mining the Sky
While we worry over the depletion of the earth's natural resources, the pollution of our planet, and the challenges presented by the earth's growing population, billions of dollars worth of metals, fuels, and life-sustaining substances await us in nearby space. In this visionary book, noted planetary scientist John S. Lewis explains how we can mine these precious metals from the asteroids, comets, and planets in our own solar system for use in space construction projects. And this is just one of the possibilities. Join John S. Lewis as he contemplates milking the moons of Mars for water and hollowing out asteroids for space-bound homesteaders—all while demonstrating the economic and technical feasibility of plans that were once considered pure fiction.
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6recommend
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2009–2021years
100% recommend
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What Hacker News says
- If you're interested in space mining there's an excellent book called Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John S. Lewis that goes into great detail about the how space mining and building in space could work
- At this point a reference to the groundbreaking and utterly fascinating "Mining the Sky" book by John S. Lewis is in order which should be on everyone's "must read" list.
- I don't understand why Musk is so focused on a Mars Colony. Why go to all the effort of climbing out of one gravity well just to drop yourself down another?
It be a lot easier to mine asteroids and build colonies in Earth or solar orbit. And potentially hugely profitable if they choose a platinum-rich asteroid.
See further: 'The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space' by Gerard K. O'Neill
'Mining the Sky' by John S. Lewis
- For those who are interesting finding out more I would recommend: Mining the Sky by John S. Lewis. It's an excellent book that discusses in length the composition of NEO, possible retrieval methods and economics of such an endeavour.
http://www.amazon.fr/Mining-The-Sky-Asteroids-Planets/dp/020...
- If this kind of thing interests you and you haven't read it yet, it might be worth reading "Mining the Sky" by John S. Lewis which goes into how this could in theory be done without enormous advancements in technology and what the value would be.
- Why?
Or, perhapse "Why is that obvious / why is it a necessity?"
If humanity expands into space, there is absolutely no reason for the population to ever stop growing. Space contains more energy, more living space, and more resources than we could possibly use.(1)
In fact, give the release of resource constraints, there are good arguments to keep growing--"given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow" applies to more than just software. More people is a good thing.
(1) For a really good treatment on this, read Professor John S. Lewis's _Mining the Sky_ http://www.amazon.com/Mining-Sky-Untold-Asteroids-Planets/dp...
