Tag: Ben Bova

The Economics of Space

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 1 Comment

As you may have heard, the economy is in bad shape.  Some people say it’s getting better, others say it’s getting worse, but it seems everyone agrees it’s not as good as it needs to be.  As much as people like to blame President Bush and/or President Obama, this isn’t only an issue for the United States but for the whole world.  The solution to this global economic problem may lie in space.

A team of researchers in Glasgow, Scotland have been studying the list of Near Earth Objects (a.k.a. NEOs), the asteroids that tend to come dangerously close to Earth.  Scientists watch these NEOs so that we’ll have some early warning if any of them threaten to collide with our planet.  It’s an effort to save lives, but now it may also help save the economy.

The Glasgow researchers have identified twelve NEOs that they believe we could capture using existing technology.  These asteroids contain many valuable resources.  Some, like iron, nickel, and cobalt, we’ve all heard of, but asteroids may also provide traces of rare elements like neodymium and erbium which are essential for all our fancy electronics.  Those twelve asteroids could be worth a small (or perhaps not-so-small) fortune.

In our current economy, we can only tap the resources here on Earth, and those resources are limited.  Capturing NEOs allows us to expand our pool of resources, but that’s only the first step toward taking advantage of everything space has to offer.  The Moon has a plentiful supply of helium-3, which one day we might be able to use as a carbon-free, radiation-free fuel.  Colonizing Mars would open up a whole new real estate market and help alleviate Earth’s overcrowding problem.  And if just twelve asteroids are worth so much money, imagine what we could do with the hundreds of thousands of them out in the asteroid belt.

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In his Asteroid Wars novels, Ben Bova wrote about a future where major corporations squabble over the wealth of the Solar System.  Freelance prospectors fly out to the asteroid belt hoping to claim a big lump of metal and minerals for themselves.  Some of these prospectors get rich, others get killed, and big business, now armed with lasers, gets more and more violent.  In space, individual and corporate greed go unchecked by any form of law enforcement.  It’s as dangerous as the Wild West.  Perhaps more so.

I had once hoped that our scientists would lead the human race into space, driven by the desire for exploration and discovery.  Now it seems increasingly likely that businessmen will take the next giant leap for mankind.  We can only hope that things don’t turn out like in Ben Bova’s novels.

Corporate Greed: The Final Frontier

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 4 Comments

Some people look into the night sky and see stars or try to identify planets.  Others look up there and see dollar signs.  Lots of dollar signs.  Enough to change the economics of our whole planet.

According to a report from Gizmodo (click here to read it), a group of wealthy investors have teamed up to start a new company called Planetary Resources.  Their goal is to build spaceships, fly them into Earth orbit, and grab some passing asteroids.

We generally think of asteroids as big space potatoes.  In the famous asteroid field scene in The Empire Strikes Back, some of those asteroids actually are potatoes.  Every once in awhile, we hear about one coming dangerously close to Earth, and we know from Armageddon that a large enough asteroids could wipe out all life on this planet.

What we don’t generally talk about are the material resources asteroids contain.  A company that successfully captures an asteroid could harvest it for metals that are rare on Earth but essential for our fancy electronic devices.  According to Gizmodo, a single asteroid could be worth billions of dollars.

In these times of economic trouble, it’s hard to justify the expense of space travel.  It costs millions to send people into space, but that doesn’t sound so bad when you expect billions in profits.  And adding all those extra resources to the global economy could end this recession for good.

Science fiction has already anticipated this situation.  Ben Bova’s Asteroid Wars series, which is part of his larger, Grand Tour of the Solar System series, tells the story of greedy corporations fighting over control of the Solar System’s resources.  While catching and mining asteroids is exciting and could save our economy, hopefully we won’t let things turn as violent as Ben Bova’s novels predict.

Sci Friday – Solar System Monopoly

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 1 Comment

Space entrepreneurs have a lot of big dreams.  There’s money for space tourism and contracts with NASA, now that the space shuttle program has ended.  There are also valuable resources in space.

One entrepreneur predicts that the 21st Century will become a game of “Solar System Monopoly”—something already envisioned by writers like Ben Bova and Arthur C. Clarke—and warns that the Chinese government is ready to make the first move.  See “China Will Own the Moon” for more on that.

Here are this week’s sciency links.

Also, the world is ending today.