July 07, 2026
The Final Frontier
Timothy Birdnow
Another from American Thinker. This article argues for mining asteroids for building habitats and bases in space.
The author suggests space mining would primarily be of value not for bringing home raw materials but for space construction and he's right to a degree, but only to a degree. For instance, there is considerable Helium III on the lunar surface and it is a very important material, especially in medicine and the like, and we are running out of it. We'll need to get it from the Moon. There are a lot of other valuable things in space, be it on the Moon or asteroids, things like silver or lithium that will be in increasing demand as the AI revolution continues.
But I knew the naysayers would be out in force over this. So many people are so very short-sighted and ignorant and whenever an article like this pops up anywhere they come out in force.
"
Here are a few of the comments:
"There really isn’t any reason to go to other planets or the asteroids. Whatever we want to know can be found out remotely using robotic AI. No reason to go to Mars where there is no air.
It's not just about scientific curiosity, although there are things that can be learned by people that will be missed by a machine. A man might see something and just flip over a rock while the machine will just pass it by.
But that's not the point. The point was and is expanding, growing, becoming more than just a planet-bound, resource-limited species. We are now in a downward spiral and will continue so because we now longer have any frontiers to explore, to settle, to tame.
Imagine if after Columbus found America (and he only did because Europe was exploring and colonizing before he even proposed his little trip to Queen Isabella) the European powers argued the same "too far, too labor intensive, not worth our time or trouble". Anything worth doing is worth facing hardship.
Growth is often painful but that pain opens a whole new vista in life. As a species we have always faced such growing pains. Our distant ancestors climbed out of the ocean to suck air on land and found it difficult to move but we stayed at it, eventually colonizing the planet. Human beings came down from trees, then caves, and traveled from continent to continent. Are we to assume the journey is over now and we should just stay put, not leaving the comfort of our current home?
We need to colonize space - the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and the moons of the outer system.
Why? Right now just one of those asteroids could hit us and there isn't a single thing we can do about it and we would become extinct, if it was a large one. If people were on the Moon, just 240,000 miles away, the human race would survive. Ditto a major nuclear war. Ditto a doomsday virus. Ditto a massive volcanic event.
The farther and wider a species spreads the more likely it is to survive. There is a reason why crocodiles/alligators survived when things like dinosaurs died out; they were everywhere and could find places to ride out the apocalypse. We need to do likewise.
There was a paper that gained a great deal of fame back around 1900 called the Turner Thesis. The argument was that America was a frontier nation, and always had the safety valve of the frontier residing in the psyche of the People. If times were too hard, or if you did something bad and needed a fresh start, you could always flee to the frontier. It was a wild place and pioneers always felt a sense of satisfaction in knowing they were spreading civilization to a wilderness. Turner argued that the closing of the frontier would lead to profound psychological changes in the American People.
Turner wasn't wrong; we've changed immensely from what we were. (Immigration helped that along too but we were wise enough to stop immigration for over forty years.) But the frontier still holds a place in our collective hearts; it is the reason why Westerns were and are so popular. It's why shows about Alaska are popular today; it's our last frontier and it will close eventually, though few are brave enough to face the vicissitudes of that frozen and wild land.
Space is the last, and as Star Trek put it, final frontier. No matter how long or far we go there will always be more of it. And we can settle anywhere we like (within reason) up to and including just building giant space stations and living on them permanently. Scientists have invented many types of space colonies; O'Neil Colonies, Stanford Toruses, Bernal Spheres, etc. If you can build a suspension bridge you can build a space colony - it's just much larger and enclosed. Oh, and it spins to provide gravity.
At any rate let's continue with a few more of the stupid comments:
"Great Article… Though, using asteroids in space would still entail transportation costs. The asteroid belt lies beyond the orbit of Mars, if the goal is extract a meaningful amount of water and transport it back to earth and/or orbit, any transporting and processing costs would exceed the benefits.. …
As if we are going to use chemical rockets forever. This commenter doesn't understand that, in space, the engine gives just an initial push and inertia does the rest. It's like firing a bullet. There are many ways to move stuff in space that costs little.
For instance we could build solar sails. Light exerts pressure and a huge, very thin sail made of reflective material can sail as surely as a wind-driven craft on Earth. Low thrust by highly efficient and it keeps running, keeps accelerating, as long as you like. You can even tack into the 'wind' by various methods, and use the solar wind (charged particles coming out of the sun) as a further means of propulsion. We can also build an electric rocket, particularly a mass driver. Wonderful idea; much like a water-wheel a mass driver used electromagnets to move a bunch of buckets full of dirt, plain old dirt. Chucks the dirt out at the end and pulls the bucket back in. Power it with solar energy and you have a cheap propulsion system that could use the slag from your mining operation to get the ore back to Earth. There is also the Nerva K, which uses a nuclear reactor to superheat a material that you expel out the bottom - a nuclear rocket.
Getting around in space isn't expensive; what is expensive is leaving the Earth. And landing stuff is a LOT cheaper.
"Never happen. Not in this century or the next. #1 reason: Zero return on investment, which would be massive and impossible to recoup. #2: The technology doesn’t exist and the problems/obstacles to overcome are infinite and unknowable. #3: Magic thinking. Just because some brainiac reimagines the laws of physics, time and space, doesn’t mean it’s feasible or realistic.
People wishing to enter dangerous environments that are extremely hostile to human life ought to forget outerspace and focus on innerspace; stay home and explore earth’s oceans, which hold vast, untapped resources that would actually be possible to mine, unlike the moon, Mars, and asteroids."
I've already explained why, after the high initial cost, space resources would prove cheaper. That is often true of things - a hydro-electric dam has a very high up-front cost but produces power for a long time quite cheaply relative to other systems.
As for mining the deep oceans, the guy is just clueless. In space you need to keep the pressure IN. A thin membrane is adequate; the Apollo landing modules were as thin as a couple of sheets of Reynolds Wrap and pressurized - little more than balloons. The deep ocean, on the other hand, is so heavy we can barely send probes down to the bottom and even many well-tested submarines that did not go to the bottom cracked and people died. Also, there is a rich habitat in the oceans while nothing at all in space; mining the bottom of the sea could wipe out whole species while mining in space could wipe out - a couple of rocks. Oh, and how are you going to mine in the deep?
"There really isn’t any reason to go to other planets or the asteroids. Whatever we want to know can be found out remotely using robotic AI. No reason to go to Mars where there is no air.
There was no reason to go to the Marianas Trench either, or to the stratosphere, but the Picard family did it anyway. No reason to climb Mt. Everest. No reason to go to the North Pole or Antarctica.
Robot probes don't inspire people - people do. And robot probes don't colonize, making a new world for our progeny. People do.
"Agreed!
And a Mars colony is a Musk fantasy. Who wants to live out their life in a dark-skied, desert, and spend every waking moment just producing your food and maintaining the buildings you live in? Sounds like life-imprisonment with no parole to me. But a great way to bilk 10s of billions of dollars from the government."
Thousands have tried to sign up for Musk's Mars colony - they have had to turn them away. Obviously SOME want to live this way.
And what does this author do for a living? Obviously he's not a farmer or he wouldn't sneer at maintaining buildings and growing food, which is what farmers do. But if he's, say, an accountant, he still labors all day at a task that is at least as mundane, and a hellova lot less important than working to maintain a colony on another world.
Yeah; it would be a bit like life imprisonment as you couldn't go outside except in a space-suit and only when the sun is quiet and not for long lest radiation kill you. But there are plenty of people who are happy to live inside all the time. I would add that it would not remain prison-like for long as eventually large habitats will be built - in lava flow tubes, inside of bluffs and elsewhere, which will be filled with plants and water and feel very much like the outdoors. We can synthesize that, up to and including moving air for a "breeze". Also you will have plenty of computer technology to entertain you. On a Moon colony you could even get on the internet, even if it would be a bit slow.
We are, after all, just passengers in space anyway. Earth is just a much bigger space habitat than the kind we are going to build.
Here is the only really thoughtful critique:
"We are going nowhere locally in our solar system until we can generate artificial gravity. It is absurd to believe astronauts could live in Zero G for 10 months on the way the Mars and then go down to the planet and be able to function. It is well documented it can take weeks if not months the re-adapt to gravity with a myriad of physiological issues, like experiencing vertigo. A spinning craft to generate 1 G would have to be a minimum of 1/4 mile in diameter across to avoid the spatial distortion caused by the Coriolis effect."
Actually it's not at all absurd to think astronauts could spend ten months in space in zero G; they've done it in the ISS and the Soviets did it in the old Mir. But it's not optimal, for sure.
The main problem is radiation shielding. Radiation outside of the Earth's magnetic field is a serious issue, and you need mass - lots of it - to protect you. There would have to be storm "cellars" to act as shelters. This greatly increases the mass of the ship, making it harder to launch and harder to get the proper course window to each Mars. Oh, and harder to decelerate at the end.
He is correct; a rotating ship would have to be fairly large to avoid the Coriolis Effect. The CE is a phenomenon where acceleration is different at different points in the rotating body. Your head is moving slower than your body, in other words, and the result is there will be a lower gravity there than in your feet. This would be - disadvantageous to put it mildly. It would NOT be impossible but difficult, and everything you do would have to be quite different than on Earth. It could be useful when you sleep; it would tug on your body and help keep muscles working and help you avoid some of the more unpleasant issues of zero g, like your head bobbing in the low gravity, or breathing issues when you sleep. And it would be helpful when you use the toilet, at least more helpful than zero g pooping, which requires a lot of muscle use.
Difficult but not impossible. And if you are sending a whole space colony there, why not a big one? Then you can avoid the problem. Or increase your speed so you get there sooner.
An Orion nuclear drive would do that. Use atomic bombs and chuck them with a gun under a "pusher plate". I assure you you will go fast. Estimates said you could get to Mars in a month. Of course the Outer Space Treaty made this spacecraft drive illegal back in the late sixties, but Trump wants to get out of it.
Still, there is no reason to dawdle in space anyway. It's a whole lot of nothing except when there is something - and that something is rarely good. Radiation, micrometeors, ice, Little green space women, etc.
Space living is the next step in our evolution, like it or not. Staying here means staying in a place that will become increasingly poor, increasingly despotic, and wars will continue to break out and likely get nastier. Our only way out of this cycle is to do what our forefathers did, from the time they first left Africa so many millenia ago - colonize the wilderness. God commanded that in the Bible after all "be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth". So many think the Earth just means this planet. I take a larger view of that command.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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