Tournament: All | Round: Finals | Opponent: All | Judge: 100 gecs
Brandon A. Weber, (Brandon Weber has been writing and creating viral joy on the Innerwebz for over 7 years at Upworthy, The Progressive, Big Think, and more. His book on forgotten histories of unions, working people, veterans, and other marginalized people is available on Barnes 26 Noble, Amazon, Powell’s.), Big Think, 8-16-2018 ~"Space mining is officially a thing, and now there are classes in how to do it", https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/space-mining-is-officially-a-thing-and-now-there-are-classes-in-how-to-do-it/~~ SN Accessed 12-29-2021.
While the price tag involved in establishing a human colony on the Moon or Mars
AND
minerals mined in space will be used in space as humanity spreads outwards.
Rare Earth Materials Are Abundant. There are around two million near-earth asteroids brimming with rare earth minerals, precious metals, iron, and nickel. The Moon contains helium-3, yttrium, samarium, and lanthanum, while Mars contains an abundance of magnesium, aluminum, titanium, iron, chromium, and trace amounts of lithium, cobalt, tungsten, and other metals. Importantly, many planetary bodies contain water, which through hydrolysis can be used as rocket fuel.
It Helps with Sustainability. Earth’s resources are finite. Non-renewable metal resources are inherently unsustainable, and mining causes environmental degradation all over the world. The answer is to source our minerals off-world. Off-world minerals are exhaustible as well, but the argument is that mining lifeless rocks such as the Moon or asteroids is infinitely preferable to continuing to damage Earth’s fragile biosphere.
Discoveries May Be Made Opening space to commercial mining does not mean that science takes a back seat. Space-mining interests could drive scientific advancement by discovering extremely rare or unknown minerals on other planetary bodies.
Robotics Would Do the Work While countless lives have been lost on Earth over the centuries due to mining accidents and disasters, it is likely that humans will not have to risk their lives by traveling in-person to off-world mining sites. Regolith-sampling probes are already in use and provide an early glimpse of what a scaled-up robotic mining craft may one day look like.
Off-Earth Mining and Space Law The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is unclear in
AND
framework and has subsequently emerged as a European hub for the fledgling industry.
Alex Gilbert, 4-26-2021, "Mining in Space Is Coming," Milken Institute Review, https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/mining-in-space-is-coming
Space exploration is back. After decades of disappointment, a combination of better technology
AND
access to space resources remains tangled in the realities of economics and governance.
Private sector mining overcomes all extinction scenarios – the resources it provides solve back resource shortages, climate change, and extinction level natural disasters
Pelton 17—Director Emeritus of the Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute at George Washington University, PHD in IR from Georgetown.. Pelton, Joseph N. 2017. The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon21 Springer. Accessed 8/30/19.
Are We Humans Doomed to Extinction? What will we do when Earth’s resources are
AND
global space agreements, are part of this new pathway to the future.
Klare 13 – Michael T., professor emeritus of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington, DC, " How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion", The Nation, 4/22/2013, https://www.thenation.com/article/how-resource-scarcity-and-climate-change-could-produce-global-explosion/ JHW
Resource Shortages and Resource Wars Start with one simple given: the prospect of future
AND
conflict. We are now heading directly into a resource-shock world.
Nafeez Ahmed, 12-12-2018, "We Don’t Mine Enough Rare Earth Metals to Replace Fossil Fuels With Renewable Energy," Vice, https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3mavb/we-dont-mine-enough-rare-earth-metals-to-replace-fossil-fuels-with-renewable-energy
A new scientific study supported by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure warns that the renewable
AND
terbium, indium, dysprosium, and praseodymium—must grow twelvefold by 2050
Anthony D. Barnosky* Affiliation, 9-15-2015, "Transforming the global energy system is required to avoid the sixth mass extinction," Cambridge Core, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/mrs-energy-and-sustainability/article/abs/transforming-the-global-energy-system-is-required-to-avoid-the-sixth-mass-extinction/3B926E20A730AF666D6FCB75E366B703
This study argues that the climate changes resulting from the continued burning of fossil fuels
AND
the transformation is occurring too slowly to avoid worst-case extinction scenarios.
Bychristina Nunez, 1-30-2019, "Renewable energy, facts and information," Environment, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/renewable-energy
Wonder whether your state could ever be powered by 100 percent renewables? No matter
AND
the planet to be renewed, our energy will have to be renewable.
Anthony Watts, 4-23-2022, "Life After Energy: What if fossil fuels disappeared tomorrow?," Watts Up With That?, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/07/life-after-energy-what-if-fossil-fuels-disappeared-tommorrow/
Atlas Shrugged is the title of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel in which the world grinds
AND
thirds of the electric power gone, the grid would shut down entirely.
Aaron Larson, Jul 22, 2015, 7-22-2015, "Expert: 90 of U.S. Population Could Die if a Pulse Event Hits the Power Grid," POWER Magazine, https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-hits-power-grid/
Johnson, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security 26 Governmental Affairs, posed questions to witnesses testifying on Capitol Hill before his committee. He asked R. James Woolsey, chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, what would happen to society if the electrical grid were to be down for an extended period of time, such as a year or two, following an EMP event?
Woolsey responded, "It’s briefly dealt with in the commission report of ~2008
AND
talking about total devastation. We’re not talking about just a regular catastrophe."