Space Resources: Exploring the Final Frontier, with Alex Gilbert

Published: Sept. 20, 2020, midnight

This week, host Daniel Raimi learns more about space mining with Alex Gilbert, a fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. In their discussion of the fundamentals of space mining, Gilbert and Raimi address key questions like the following: What resources are people interested in mining? What technologies are necessary to extract resources? How is the ownership of space resources governed? What environmental risks might we encounter\u2014or create\u2014in outer space?\n\nReferences and recommendations:\n\n\u201cLife on Venus? Astronomers See a Signal in Its Clouds\u201d by Shannon Stirone, Kenneth Chang, and Dennis Overbye; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/science/venus-life-clouds.html\n\n\u201cPhosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus\u201d by Jane S. Greaves\u200a, Anita M. S. Richards\u200a, William Bains, Paul B. Rimmer, Hideo Sagawa\u200a, David L. Clements, Sara Seager, Janusz J. Petkowski, Clara Sousa-Silva, Sukrit Ranjan, Emily Drabek-Maunder, Helen J. Fraser, Annabel Cartwright, Ingo Mueller-Wodarg\u200a, Zhuchang Zhan, Per Friberg\u200a, Iain Coulson, E\u2019lisa Lee, and Jim Hoge; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1174-4.pdf\n\n\u201cThe Space Force has a horse, for some reason\u201d by Kathryn Krawczyk; https://theweek.com/speedreads/927152/space-force-horse-some-reason