A good overview of the companies going after lunar and asteroidal resources. Expect to hear a lot more nonsense like this as the industry evolves, though:
Space exploration researcher Alice Gorman is based at Flinders University, Australia, and is an internationally recognised leader in the emerging field of space archaeology. Passionate about space, she believes both industry and academia underestimate the emotional investment people have in the night sky.
‘There is the view that it’s just unethical to destroy another celestial body… but then [people] also question if it is right for a profit-making company to make massive profits from this,’ she says. ‘Nobody doubts the investment will be monumental and some argue that those willing to take these risks deserve all the rewards as this isn’t for the faint-hearted.’
But, as Gorman also highlights, the world already has unequal distributions of wealth and some wonder if space-based industries could drive these disparities further apart. As she asks, could Earth one day comprise a terrestrial-based underclass looking up at the off-world wealthy.
We wasted six bucks Saturday night to watch Elysium on pay per view. It’s based on the same stupid socialistic fantasy premise.
Rabid anti-Semitism coupled with an addiction to implausible conspiracy theories is a very strong predictor of national doom; Nazi Germany isn’t the only country to have followed these dark stars to the graveyard of history. Many liberal minded Americans (though loathing both anti-Semitism and chowderheaded conspiracy thinking themselves) don’t like to look this truth in the eye. It leads to some very uncomfortable reflections about the potential for democracy in many countries beyond Egypt, and casts a dark shadow over the prospects for the development of a stable and prosperous Palestinian state. It suggests that there are narrow limits on what we can expect from diplomacy with Iran.
There’s a lot of delusional thinking in the White House along these lines.