Transferring The Space Mining Legacy – Teaching The Next Generation About the Contemporary Space Mining Concepts

Abstract

The concept of Space Mining appears to have been misalligned and misconstrued. Consequently, Space Mining has received negative energy with minimum appreciation. This is because traditional mining around the world, has itself received negative publicity due to one error or another, or lack of best practices; but mining cannot be stopped nor abolished for any reason since, save the air we breathe, whatever that is not grown on earth is mined.Unfortunately, while majority of the world is saddled with bread and butter issues, discussion on space mining has been left for a few people/countries because of the aforementioned misconception. We believe that if there were more diversity on board, space mining could have reached a far more maturity stage that it is now. It is a contempoarary axiom that collaboration is superior to competation. But how would others collaborate to space mining if they don’t understand the concept, let alone appreciate it. In our conservative opinion, three ingredients needed for success to be chalked in humankind’s quest to explore the outer world are understanding, appreciation, and collaboration.In understanding space mining, we seek to disabuse the minds of the next generation NOT to see it in the same way mining is done on earth; which is the traditional mining. Contemporary Space Mining is not about extracting minerals from other planets, and bringing them to earth. Recall that, when we travel from point A to B, we go along with our barest minimum. For example, we don’t carry our utensils when we travel, because they are more likely to be available at our points destination. This however is NOT the case when we travel to space, and therefore makes space trips very expensive, as the air, food, water etc. are all part of the space journey logistics and limit the duration. It is in this respect that contemporary space mining comes to look at the possible products that can be mined and used in space so that we don’t have to take them to space. A few questions we ask are; (i) can't we have a hydroponics or tank farms in space to produce food so we can stay there a little longer and collect more data? (ii). can we mine certain components and get oxygen and then water? (iii) can we synthesise what we find in space and produce what we need for sustainance?  These are the interests of the contemporary space mining quest, and we must teach the next generation to start thinking along these lines of thoughts, while instilling in them the spirit collaboration. Once they understand and appreciate it, they automatically log on to the idea and can easily contribute their unique quotas. It is only after appreciation that collaboration is possible to making space mining successful.The sphere of collaboration on space mining is extensive. For starters, content developers could bring in their imaginative prowess and challenge the young ones with cartoons and movies to pave the way for research in space mining.