A Return to Asteroid Mining, and Digging Into Space Ethics with Joel Sercel
Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science
The Planetary Society
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2020
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At least two ambitious, smart asteroid mining companies have gone bust. Joel Sercel makes the case that his new effort comes at a much better time, and with a better approach. He’ll also share his audacious plan for mining water on the Moon, along with his concerns regarding humanity’s spread across the solar system. Can we avoid the mistakes made in past eras of exploration and expansion? You’ve got one more chance to win your own asteroid—a small, rubber one—in this week’s What’s Up space trivia contest. Learn more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/1104-2020-joel-sercel
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Return of asteroid Mining and the Ethics of Space Development |
| 0:05.0 | this week on Planetary Radio. |
| 0:07.0 | Welcome, I'm Ad Kaplan, of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. |
| 0:19.0 | We are about to spend a good long while with Dr Joel Sercell. We will indeed talk about |
| 0:26.4 | mining asteroids and how he hopes to accomplish this, but we'll also talk about how the |
| 0:31.7 | coming explosion of commercial space development |
| 0:35.2 | can avoid the ethical challenges of previous eras of exploration. |
| 0:40.1 | I think you'll be as fascinated and stimulated by what Joel has to say as I was. |
| 0:45.0 | Don't worry, we'll save a few minutes for our weekly visit with Bruce Betts, |
| 0:49.0 | including another space trivia contest you can enter. |
| 0:53.4 | You should have been able to enjoy the November space policy edition not long after this show is |
| 0:58.9 | published, but we're going to make you wait an extra week, I'm afraid, with good reason. |
| 1:03.7 | Casey Dreyer and I worried that we may not yet know who will be President of the United States |
| 1:08.8 | by the first Friday in November. |
| 1:11.3 | Who knows? We may still not know by the second Friday, November 13th. But we hope |
| 1:16.3 | we will and that's when you'll hear the next SPE. If things go well for SpaceX we will |
| 1:22.1 | also be just a day away from the first operational |
| 1:25.1 | launch of a crew dragon capsule, ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station. |
| 1:31.4 | As I speak, that event is scheduled for Saturday, November 14th. |
| 1:36.8 | It's not too late to catch the Halloween edition of the Downlink. |
| 1:40.0 | Wait till you see its eerie image of a jack-o-lantern sun, no Photoshop required. |
| 1:46.7 | Here are samples of other stories you'll find below that picture. |
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