The space movement and the environmental movement should join together. They should and need to do that, because they would complement each other in ways either side cannot imagine right now (the space advocates can, but the environmentalists have yet to understand), and this article will explain why.
To summarize, we all know of pollution and climate change. Factory and power plants are spewing out carbon dioxide, methane, mercury, and many other toxic chemicals that are heating the atmosphere, melting the ice caps and raising the sea level, causing sever weather disruption, and poisoning the air, ground, and water and killing both plant and animal life, including human beings. Mining for minerals from coal and iron to gold and platinum require the use of chemicals that poison the water and destroy the landscape. Mountain top removal for coal mining destroys both the landscape and the surrounding environment, literally making it uninhabitable.
The other side of the coin is that we need our energy to run our homes, factories, and transportation systems and live comfortably. We need our factories to have a vibrant economy to have jobs and, again, live comfortably. We want a clean world, and yet we want to maintain our quality of life. These two are not mutually exclusive. We can have both, but we need to invest in clean energy, clean up our oceans and rivers, have factories not pollute the air, land, and water, and work to replant the forests and jungles we have depleted. We also need a cleaner way to obtain badly needed minerals.
Is all this possible? Yes, but we need to look to space to build factories, power plants, and mine for minerals on near Earth asteroids, the Moon, and eventually, beyond Mars to the outer asteroids. Mercury, the planet nearest to the Sun, is also a candidate for mining minerals, especially iron, but we have to build life support systems and machinery that can withstand the Sun’s intense heat.
Space manufacturing plants can replace many on Earth that are burning coal and oil to manufacture steel and other metal products, by building these factories in space. The Sun itself can be used as a heat source to process these minerals and convert them into useful products. The problem of pollution would also be greatly reduced. While solid waste cannot and should not be emitted, because space junk is a major problem in Earth orbit (see my essay “Out Beyond the Sky Lies a Junkyard”) and in space, it can always be reused. The emitting of toxic liquids and gases, mostly gases, from the processing of minerals will not be a problem in space, because when liquids and gases are emitted in space, they disperse into atoms into the infinite void, posing no threat to anything else whatsoever, present and future.
Radioactive waste will pose no problem either, because space itself is radioactive. The sun is one big nuclear furnace exponentially emitting more radiation than we can ever produce here on Earth. Just a thought; when space travel becomes a lot easier, say 50 years down the road, perhaps nuclear wastes from Earth could be lifted into space and thrown into the sun, if a use for it is not yet found. This is one more way how space development can help clean up Earth’s environment.
Asteroids can provide the metals necessary to manufacture these parts, using the sun’s rays to process this metal instead of coal here on Earth. Zero gravity can also allow new allows to be formed that cannot be formed on Earth because of its gravity, so many new metal products, with a lot more finery, can be formed. If the majority of these factories were to go into space, pollution would be cut down by a huge percentage.
Granted, one cannot manufacture an entire car and bring to Earth, but many car parts can be manufactured and bought to Earth for assembly. This concept would apply to any other large machinery. Manufacture the parts in space, assemble them on Earth.
Power plants generating electricity is another problem involving the emissions of greenhouse and other toxic gases, and in the case of coal, toxic ash also. The Energy business is literally one of the world’s dirtiest businesses, but the advent of clean energy, such as solar, wind, and geothermal, is a new trend, and growing. One little known source of clean energy lies in space.
I have pointed out in another essay (“Energy and Space Development - They do go Together) about Solar Power Satellites, Helium-3 fusion with the Helium-3 obtained from the Moon and other celestial bodies, and the use of Platinum mined from the Moon and asteroids for use in fuel cells for future transportation, power by Hydrogen, forming a new Hydrogen economy. All this would replace coal, oil, and eventually, natural gas to fuel our societies, along with terrestrial solar, wind, and geothermal energy.
Clean energy means no carbon dioxide, methane, mercury, and other poisonous gases spewed out into the atmosphere, or poisoning our waterways and land.
This brings us to the last major subject, mining. Mining everything from coal to platinum brings deadly toxins to the environment. In rare minerals such as diamonds and gold, chemicals are needed to extract them from the rock, and these very chemicals then leak into rivers, poisoning water needed for irrigation and drinking. Mining coals causes black lung disease in miners, and the process of transporting it will give off coal dust, to be inhaled by anyone in the vicinity.
If we were to mine the minerals from asteroids and other planets, there would be little need to mine these same elements here on Earth, saving the landscape. Whatever landscape has been damaged can then be restored nearly to its original shape. Granted, it will never be the same as it originally was, but new soil can be laid, a new ecosystem can be placed, similar to what originally was there.
This will take work, resources, and money, but it is a possibility, and it has been done in other exploited areas. The science of land restoration is being practiced and improved upon, and we will need professionals in this field.
Putting factories and power plants in space and mining the asteroids, and the Moon, will cut down greatly on pollution, perhaps, eventually, reversing the damage done to the Earth. Should most of these factories be put up into space, pollution and climate change will be less of a problem.
There will still be manufacturing plants on Earth producing items that cannot be made in space due to the unavailability of the required materials. Petroleum products, such as plastics, will still be produced on Earth, due to the fact that there is no oil in space, and shipping it up there for that purpose will take a lot of effort, and money. The same holds true for any other chemicals not available in space.
Minerals and energy will not be a problem, and these will cut down on pollution by a wide margin. How much is hard to tell at this moment, but it will be over 50 percent, probably a whole lot more.
Perhaps, from denuded and scorched areas, forests and jungles can be replanted, slowly reversing the effect of climate change. When these polluted areas are cleared of their source, a new form of land restoration will begin, improving on this technology as we progress.
Eventually, as more polluting industries migrate to space, the Earth will slowly be restored to its natural beauty, becoming a park. This is possible. I do not believe that it is too late to do this.
This will not be as easy as it sounds, and problems do lie ahead, but we can only try. This is one of the prime reasons why space needs to be developed, to increase the quality of life, including the healing the of environment, here on Earth.
Note: A new problem will develop. As a lot of industries migrate into space, a lot of jobs will be lost down here on Earth, resulting in high unemployment. Outsourcing to space will be a problem and raise objections worldwide, and the entire world economy will be greatly affected. Whether this will be a positive or negative effect remains to be seen, and will be covered in the next essay.
Alastair Browne
