To Infinity and Beyond

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From the first man on the moon…

To mining for resources in outer space.

In fifty years.

NOS: De jacht op onuitputtelijke goudvoorraad in de ruimte is begonnen. [Article in Dutch]
The hunt for unlimited gold resources in space has begun.

From the first man on the moon to mining for resources in outer space, we have definitely come a long way in the last fifty years. Today a friend of mine happened to mention space mining, which I in all honestly had never heard of. At first I thought it was related to cryptocurrency or some kind of computer game, but it turns out its huge business, mining on asteroids for valuable materials. According to the article, a single asteroid could contain over 70 billion euros worth of precious metals and yet Elon Musk believes that it is not cost-effective to do so. Instead he mentions that it would be much more effective to invest in the production of fuel in outer space, this would mean that satellites and space shuttles could undergo maintenance and refuel in outer space according to Carnelli. Although this article mostly revolves around the business aspects of going to outer space, I found it very interesting for three main reasons.

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Firstly, when it comes to sustainability, a field in which I have been very active, I have always been limited to thinking about resources on our planet and making things circular etc. Never would it have crossed my mind to consider the resources available beyond our planet and extracting those for human activity. If technology develops further and this space mining does become a reality, I wonder what the role of a circular economy would become in the future.

Secondly, despite the fact that it is an interesting approach to getting new resources, I am faced with a new dilemma: is the attempt to collect resources from outer space sustainable, since we are no longer exhausting our own planet of natural resources or is this just shifting the problem to outer space until we run out of resources there?

Lastly, I like to think that I’m a creative thinker that really goes way beyond the box. When reading about these kinds of developments, I’m reminded of the importance of creativity and the way in which the current education system doesn’t quite stimulate creative thinking. This on the other hand is a whole other point that I will come back to some other time.

So when it comes to space mining, should we see this as an opportunity or a threat? Personally, I have never been a big fan of space travel and would prefer it if our resources were focused on facing the pressing issues on our own planet with our own resources, rather than taking the problem elsewhere that may lead to a whole new set of problems. On the other hand, going outer space may be the solution to a (large) part of our problems, even if it is only temporary, to satisfy the rapidly growing demand for resources. It may even be inevitable and definitely worth a try, especially if it is the case that there’s a gold mine in materials up there. Nevertheless, I’d like to bring up another point to consider: why we are going to these lengths to obtain more resources in the first place? Last weekend I came across another article that suggests how working less could lead to consuming less, it could reduce carbon emissions by half. If that is the case, we may not even need to go outer space for extra resources, but that’s something I’ll bring up another time.