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Is it really? And is that really how progress has
been made on Earth? When one looks back at the unpredictably rapid
bursts of technical advances, one wonders what planet these people
are living on.
Indeed, since NASA and other government space
agencies act at a snail's pace, it cannot be more than a matter of
decades before private industry outstrips them. And perhaps in
less than a century after that, events in space will be beyond the
control of any government.
Consider the asteroids. Their resources are
certain to attract capitalists who wish to create a
self-sufficient trading economy in the solar system. Practically
everything the asteroids contain can be found on Earth, but why go
to the expense of carrying these materials into space? Why not
exploit them where they can be found?
There are more than a million asteroids more than
a kilometre wide between Mars and Jupiter. A huge number of these
are ``carbonaceous''–containing compounds of carbon. These
contain other such ``volatile'' elements, such as hydrogen,
oxygen, sulphur and nitrogen, so-called because they can be
changed from solid to liquid to gas and back again.
And above all there is water, not only for
drinking but for cleaning, diluting, for breaking down substances
and as a radiation shield against dangerous cosmic rays. Frozen as
blocks of ice, water can be transported and stored in huge
quantities without containers.
No life can exist without water, but life of
almost any conceivable kind can exist with it. Indeed, there is
nearly 200 times more water in the solar system than in all the
oceans, lakes, rivers, ice sheets and glaciers of Earth. With a
wealth of other common chemicals, the prospects for industrial
chemistry seem unlimited.
Traders such as these can make themselves
independent of Earth. When Mars is terraformed, they will have a
home planet for recreation and countless much smaller worlds for
mining, manufacture and trade. Earth, with its oppressive gravity,
will be a far-off memory.
But before true self-sufficiency there will be a
period of tension. Politicians on Earth will not take kindly to
the idea of hundreds of thousands of people making huge profits
who cannot be taxed because they cannot be found. But an asteroid
can be moved with a few rocket bursts and hidden among countless
others. Efforts to control their inhabitants will be ultimately
vain. This prospect of future space travel is a very different one
from NASA's today.
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