Asteroids

There are reasons to go into space, but they're scattered all over
the solar system. Rule of thumb seems to be that planets get denser
as you get closer to the sun. That would seem to indicate that
mercury will be a treasure house of heavy elements like gold,
platinum, irridium, and so on. The moon has aluminum, silicon, and a
type of soil that forms instant concrete for building space
habitats. Water you can get from comets, as well as from Europa or
the rings. Comets also have carbon. The asteroids have iron and
nickel in abundance. Mars probably has a little of everything,
including salts of various kinds. Mars and Venus, as well as Earth,
both all have nitrogen, which is essential for setting up a working
ecology.

As for what there is that is worth making the trip - nothing. It's
what we are going to build there that will make the trip worthwhile.
In five hundred years, I expect to see a ring of space habitats
orbiting the sun, each with the internal area of a small state, at
least. The materials to build them are all available, it's just a
matter of bringing it all together.

What will eventually evolve for that purpose is Von Neumann
technology, robots that use materials at hand to build more of
themselves until there are enough of them for a really big
engineering project.

Once we have that, we can start sending off Von Neumann robots to
neighboring star systems to convert nebular material into space
habitats to await colonists. The robots to start the job might fit
into a probe the size of a walnut. Additional programming
instructions can be beamed to them as they reproduce, eventually
concerting an entire stellar nebula into a home for man. Then we
start beaming them information about DNA sequences, and they create
the species needed to form viable ecologies. And if human settlers
are slow in coming, then they create human settlers as well. (Anyone
read Renzezvous with RAMA?)

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Justin wrote:
> Three reasons I can think of off the top of my head:
>
> 1) For use in space settlements/factories so they won't have to pay
to
> get it shipped out of Earth's gravity well.
>
> 2) As a low impact (to Earth inhabitants) alternative to mining gold
> here on Earth.
>
> 3) As a low-cost way to generate revenue once a mining
infrastructure
> has already been set up outside the gravity well. Once we're
already
> out there mining the stuff for our own use, I have no doubt we will
> ship some of our spoils back planet-side for a happy profit both for
> the miners and for the purchasers still on Earth.
>
> My question is why would we go all the way to Io for these
resources?
> Are there any resources floating around Jupiter that we can't find
> closer to home in NEOs or at least the asteroid belt?
>
> Cheers,
> --Justin
>
> From: Lucio de Souza Coelho
>
> However, I doubt that gold in Io would attract investment. Why
bother