Space Pays! — The Space Program Has Paid for Itself
Long-Term — Expanding Our Resources Base
We can’t keep subdividing Earth’s resource pie; we need to make the pie bigger. It is the promise of resources from the Moon, Mars, asteroids and the Sun that makes space such a hope for our future. World population is likely to double within 40 years and re-double shortly after that; world resources will not. In space, solar power is infinite (reducing the need to use forests and oil and coal merely for fuel, and eliminating the pollution they cause), as are asteroid metals. These unlimited resources would enable us to reduce the plundering of our planet. But to obtain these resources will require large structures in space and the rockets to get there. Learning how to build those things to obtain such space resources is a long step-by-step process. If we want to have those resources before it is too late, we have to start now.