ESA Wants Your Ideas for Living off the Land… on the Moon

Challenges have been a mainstay of space exploration for several years at this point. In the past, they have ranged from making a potential space elevator to designing a solar power system on the Moon. The European Space Agency is continuing that tradition and has recently released a new challenge focusing on lunar resources. Called the Identifying Challenges along the Lunar ISRU Value Chain campaign, this new ESA platform is the next step in the agency’s efforts to develop an entire “value chain” of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technologies.

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Chinese Asteroid Mining Robot Due to Launch in November

Mining asteroids might be necessary for humanity to expand into the Solar System. But what effect would asteroid mining have on the world's economy? Credit: ESA.

Does it seem like science is catching up with science fiction? Sometimes it does. Especially when there’s an announcement like this one.

A Chinese company says that they’ll be launching an asteroid-mining robot by November.

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