Space mining

Chilean miners, West Virginian miners, and anyone else that has ever been trapped in a mineshaft will likely smile upon the prospect of mining rare earth minerals from asteroids and think that this would be a worthwhile craft…and investment. Though, of course, it will be billionaire entrepreneurs and state governments that will pony up the funding and not coal miners, since their silicosis-inducing labor has never earned the wages of ten figures in their salary; and, of course, it will be rovers doing the mining, because somewhere deep inside every man has the audacity to believe his life worth more than the kilograms of platinum he could bring back to his terrestrial dwelling (and rightly so!). This is not “Star Wars”, though it may become ‘asteroid wars’ as governments and corporations seek to lay claim to non-terrestrial objects to be the sole proprietor of that celestial body’s metallic resources. If this seems, pardon the pun, outlandish, consider that the ‘Moon Agreement’ established by the United Nations has set up regulations concerning the banning of property rights of any entity on the moon. So why the tension and holding of breaths concerning space mining? Given the known quarry reserves of certain rare (and ‘non-rare’) earth minerals, resources here under our feet may be depleted within five to six decades at current and extrapolated consumption levels (“Apple” may have the incentive for chemists to fabricate silicon ingots, but let’s see them pull that off with platinum). Yes, Galileo was right in proclaiming “the Bible shows the way to go to heaven, but not the way the heavens go.” This is quite so, but must be taken with a grain of salt. This quote is often used by fundamentalists to disparage any scientific endeavors and that they are trivial pursuits in the grand scheme of things. While some may be, not all are, because to use such a quote as all-sweeping thresh of scientific pursuits is illogical, as the Bible does not tell one how to go about agriculture (other than generically describing seasonal harvesting), or how to build engines, or dams, or do calculus – all of which we benefit from, whether we recognize it or not. The Amish community largely rejects technological and scientific pursuits (until they need major surgery, of course) and also the ‘mixing’ with the outside world, or “English” as they call us, and thus have massive problems when it comes to having ample children with genetic disorders due to the high propensity for inbreeding. Thus, while it is an illegitimate question as to whether or not we should pursue extra-biblical knowledge, it may be a legitimate question as to which is more profitable.