This is part of a chapter from my latest
book: How to Destroy the World, and How to Pay for it
Mars is to us now what the Moon was to us in the 1960’s. It’s
the next stepping stone for man to explore our solar system
and the galaxy beyond.
There is a program underway to get people on Mars. It’s not
led by a country, but by a publicly listed company, Mars One
Ventures AG.
The Mars-One program is a one-way expedition for eight members
of the public to land and populate Mars in the 2030’s. This is
with the condition there is no return ticket. These eight
people will leave earth to potentially be the first Mars
explorers, and never come back.
Planetary Resources is another space company that’s planning
on catching and mining asteroids that generally orbit the sun
beyond Mars.
Each asteroid has similar natural resources that make up the
Earth and most of the smaller planets.
Planetary Resources believes these asteroids are mineable and
commercially an opportunity too big to ignore.
Their project is not that far away. They are working with NASA
and developing the technology to land a drone on an asteroid
and then have it drill into the surface.
They estimate that the asteroid known as Psyche 16 has £8,000
quadrillion worth of precious metals. What the asteroid holds
is more than 800,000x greater than all the precious metals
ever mined on Earth. And Psyche 16 is just one asteroid among
thousands scattered between Mars and Jupiter.
Another asteroid, Ceres, has salt deposits on the surface
which indicate that there may be a massive ocean beneath the
surface of this dwarf planet. Researchers believe that the
ocean is potentially hundreds of miles wide.
And the fact that the salt is gradually rising to the surface
of the planet suggests that there is still geologic activity
happening on Ceres. And, of course, that means there may be
life in this subterranean ocean.
On a totally different wavelength, Virgin Galactic is closer
than ever to putting the paying public into space as space
tourists. And ambitious helium-balloon company World View also
aims to send people into space in the immediate future
(they’re taking reservations now).
Further to that, billionaire Robert Bigelow and his Bigelow
Aerospace is working on a space hotel. This will allow private
individuals into space to stay at his private space station on
a holiday.
He’s already attached test pods to the ISS. There are other
pods in development which will form the basis of the orbiting
hotel. He’s expecting it to be operational in the next three
years.