The Big Three of the 21st Century--Food, Energy and Water

Here at the beginning of the 21st century, the challenges are clear: the growing population is stressing the Earth's resources to the breaking point. The "big three" are Food, Energy and Water--whose initials ominously spell FEW. Looming shortages make human misery more likely as time passes without finding solutions. Will the 21st Century be known as the Century of Scarcity? Or will we find new technical, political and economic approaches to free humanity from want and discontent?

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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

What does Outer Space have to do with it? (First of a series)

Today saw the announcement of a new company, Planetary Resources, dedicated to finding ways to mine resouces on asteroids. Your blogger has worked on spacecraft projects for several years, and this new venture is not as crazy as it may sound (more on that later).

Here is the new company's website and here is an analysis in the New York Times.

But Planetary Resources wants to harvest platinum and make rocket fuel--scarcely relevant to our pressing problems here on Mother Earth!

However, there actually might be ways in which bold ventures in outer space CAN improve our resource situation and quality of life for Earth's inhabitants. The next several posts in this blog are going to address the question: "What can we do in outer space that will actually HELP solve the problems of the Century of Scarcity?"
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