Asteroid Mining

Since the dawn of time mankind has looked up at the stars and wondered about the possibilities beyond the dirt under our feet, and in the 21^st century we have technology that lets us explore more than ever before.  One major part of space exploration is the use of rare earth metals and furthering the distance we travel would require more of these than normal.  Scientists speculate that one of the ways to cut down on the amount of materials that is taken from earth into space is to begin mining on celestial bodies outside of our earth.

It has been talked about for years, decades even, about colonizing on other planets other than earth and one of the ways that this can be possible is by extracting the resources from those foreign planets rather than bringing them from earth.  Asteroids are currently the main focus for this plan because they have a higher chance of success rate for containing the metals that are creating issues here on earth.

Asteroids have a better potential for yielding the resources we would need and it would be more effective if we could transport resources from asteroids to a newly colonized planet rather than transporting directly from earth.  This saves on the amount that we have to use here on earth and the hazardous conditions that are here on earth would be less of an issue in space because the mining would likely be unmanned.

I think the main think to take away from this is that scientists are looking into new ways to collect these resources that on earth are becoming less accessible, more expensive, and creating radiation issues.  If funding for this could be granted, the amount of resources on earth that would need to be mined could be reduced.  The hazards that are being created would lessen and space exploration could expand at the same time.

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