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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Asteroid-Metal | ||
| Metal mined from asteroids. |
Sooner or later, humanity will need to go into space for more raw materials. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain enough iron-nickel ore to supply our annual needs for iron for about the next million years (it contains 1.7 times ten to the nineteenth kilograms).
| "We can get our water from the pole, our food from the yeast vats, our building materials from the oxidized minerals in the sand... We can even fuel the space ships and mine the Asteroid Belt for rare metals..."
Lars raised himself on one elbow. "As things are now we depend on Earth to buy our asteroid-metal and supply things we can't do without. |
| From The Mechanical Monarch,
by E.C. Tubb. Published by Ace Books in 1958 Additional resources -
|
I don't know who first suggested the idea of mining the asteroids. The idea appears in science fiction by 1946, if not earlier, in Love Among the Robots by Emmett McDowell.
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