Miners In Space...

... Sort of.















Speaking of private capitol investing in space:

Vehicles  like the SpaceX( and far more advanced ones) that are being funded by the large corporations will soon be more commonplace  than, say, the B-1 bomber. Why? Money. Profits. Power. Control.

As soon as these boys can figure how to get to the asteroid belt and start mining operations, you can bet the profits will soar.

Here's one approach:

http://gizmodo.com/5904727/how-the-space-miners-will-bring-trillions-of-dollars-to-earth-live-coverage

Here's some more they don't talk about publicly... yet:

Get to the asteroid belt, find a huge chunk of unobtainium or whatever is worth $$$$$$$$, redirect it to a suitable earth orbit, then mine the hell out of it.

That's step one. Step two:

They'll  take over a large chunk of desert somewhere (Australia, Gobi, Sahara, Mojave - wherever a slight error in trajectory won't matter too much) in which to deorbit sizable chunks of valuable stuff, making recovery very easy. Of course, they will need to be chunks large enough not to burn up during de-orbiting.

At that point, they will not want ANY sort of government interference with their operations, so making NASA just another Washington blob of bureaucrats is the real ticket to unlimited and unfettered operations.

Once these guys get into space for real, there's not a government on the planet that will want to hinder them because kickbacks, payoffs, etc., will make today's bureaucrats look like the cheap crooks they are.

Future family conversation:

Child: "Mommy, what's that bright light in the sky coming coming towards us?"

Mommy: That's one of Gaia's tears, sweetheart. Isn't it beautiful?"

Daddy: It's another huge chunk of unobtainium headed for the Mojave. Let's hope it actually hits where they're aiming for this time. We don' t need another disaster like Bakersfield. "

Maybe - if we're lucky - world governments will have enough cajones to make them use the moon instead of earth as a handy place to orbit huge masses of metal.

But don't bet your paycheck on it.  

Note: Artwork from the article.