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An artist representation of asteroids exploitation. The USGS has revealed plans to create a large-scale mapping of asteroid resources, the moon, Mars and beyond. ( Denise Watt | The NASA )
The extraction of asteroids and the moon could soon be a possibility. The United States Geological Survey has begun to evaluate the space for exploiting valuable resources.
Mining in the space
The agency is responsible for mapping natural resources across the country and monitoring geological hazards, but will soon study the potential benefits of mining minerals, metals, and water. from extraterrestrial sources.
In addition, Space revealed that USGS experts participated in a roundtable on space resources at the Colorado School of Mines in June.
"The space resources community will benefit greatly from collaborating with the USGS to assess the location and value of minerals, energy and water on the moon, Mars and the Earth. asteroids, "said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources. from Colorado School of Mines.
It has been months since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced its intention to send humans to Mars by 2030. The Space Agency also announced plans to build a five lunar space station. decades after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reached the surface of the natural satellite.
Thousands of asteroids are currently in orbit relatively close to Earth and scientists predict that everyone will carry precious minerals such as gold, copper and platinum. Mineral resources, especially water, could help future manned missions in deep space.
Experts are also looking at the exploitation of space to provide unlimited resources to the growing human population as natural sources on Earth continue to deplete.
Lawrence Meinert, emeritus scientist of the USGS, said that a combination of remote sensing and physical sampling is needed to assess the resources in the space in order to rank resources and predict their potential use.
"This information can then be used to inform resource evaluation models that have been developed and successfully used on Earth," he said. "These model assessments will be fundamental to guide policy and investment decisions regarding the emerging field of space resources."
At the time of writing, the USGS does not have the budget for large-scale assessment of space resources, but hopes to be directed and funded soon.
Commercial mining in the space
Digital Trends reported that several companies have already expressed their desire to search for stars and exploit them. In 2015, Larry Page Alphabet launched Planetary Resources which is touted as the world's first asteroid mining organization.
Deep Space Industries has also begun to develop technologies for exploiting extraterrestrial resources that will be used in space.
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