The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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With NASA and the private sector taking a serious look at mining lunar and Martian soil in support of human outposts, Colorado School of Mines has unveiled two new undergraduate minors to support these space-faring endeavors. Currently the only academic institution in the Unites States to offer an advanced degree in space resources, the Colorado School of Mines is adding a space mining minor this fall that will allow undergraduate students to get a flavor of the future of...
Natural "minimoons" that temporarily orbit Earth may be interesting targets for both scientific study and to practice asteroid mining techniques. While Earth is orbited by thousands of artificial satellites and one large natural one, the Moon, it has only been recently that scientists have confirmed that small natural objects are also circling our planet. About eight years ago, researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy predicted that there must be a...
Drifting some 250 miles above the Earth, researchers aboard the International Space Station have enlisted the help from some of the smallest miners in the universe, microbes. These off-world experiments tested the possibility of using these tiny organisms to convert unsuitable space rock and regolith into soil for growing plants and food, as well as extracting valuable minerals and metals from extraterrestrial materials. Published in Nature Communications, the findings by a...
It is no secret that over the last couple of decades, mining in Australia has increased to the point that it is a world-class provider of resources and the technologies to extract them. Fields once thought played out have been revived through a better understanding of mineral exploration and extraction. One of the leading innovators in Australia is the University of Adelaide, which has consistently ranked in the top 1% of schools worldwide for academics, innovation, and resear...
NASA wants to buy Moon rocks from a private space miner able to fly up and grab an up to 1.1-pound lunar sample and deliver it to the space agency by 2024. The space administration is not particular about where the moon rocks are collected, or the content of the samples, as long as the mission is well documented, and the dirt is delivered to NASA on the Moon for payment. This lunar sampling is meant to set the stage for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to "land the first...
SpaceX will be launching a NASA payload to 16 Psyche, a roughly 173-mile-long asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter that is made up of nickel, iron and other metals. Currently slated for launch in July 2022, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will carry three payloads – equipment to support studies of the metallic asteroid, Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE), which will study the Martian atmosphere, and Janus, which will study binary a...
Space exploration and colonization will not always be able to rely on the expense of rocketing goods beyond the gravitational pull of Earth. Instead, the mining of ice and other minerals for fuel, water and building materials will need to be carried out by aspiring extraterrestrial pioneers such as SpaceX. To ensure space explorers are able to extract the resources they need to travel to, live and work on the Moon, Mars and beyond, President Donald Trump has signed an...
Space, the final frontier... No, this isn't the opening credits of Star Trek; though that would be appropriate. Since man has set himself among the stars, he has wondered at the possibilities and the riches it might have. In 1967, during the Space Race when no one was sure who would get to the moon first, the United Nations passed a resolution stating that no country could claim ownership of the moon. In 1969, the United States landed on the moon, planted a flag, and took...
