Being an aerospace engineer, I still believe that space travel is the final destiny, the final frontier, of our humble race. The first nation to begin dragging in resources from the asteroids, gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium and ruthenium, will be the solar superpower of the next age. There are enough resources in the asteroids to fuel a whole new generation of growth, but if we were to discover a new planet, that would yield a new horizon for humanity offering a fresh start with the knowledge that we have learned over the past several hundred years.
Scientists from the University of Southern California and Carnegie Institution of Washington discovered a new planet said to be in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star about 20 light years from our solar system.
This is a truly monumental discovery that, I hope will energize our efforts to open space travel up to humanity. It is the new manifest destiny to find and colonize new worlds and to learn more about the universe in which we reside.
Tally ho!
See, now imagine this:
ReplyDeleteWe go to a gold or pseudo-gold standard. Then NASA goes out and starts mining gold and platinum and magnesium from the asteroid belt, and BAM! you have a new gold rush into the solar system.