08/07/2020 – 2ND DEBATE ON MINING OF THE FUTURE: SPACE MINING

In this 2nd Debate on Mining of the Future, we wanted to focus on another type of mining we may me be faced with in the future: asteroid and planetary mining. Many of us find this topic particularly appealing, but it’s nonetheless controversial and challenging for society. 

The theoretical part of this activity, as we explained in the last publication, was organized by Jordi Llopis and Malena Cazorla, two student members from our Chapter, who decided to prepare something different this time. They have done an ISEAZY presentation (https://iseazy.com/) with all the information that they found relevant about the topic. This type of presentation allows the members to have a look at it whenever they want, and they can take the time they need to read and study it.

The second part of this 2nd Debate on Asteroid and Planetary Mining was carried out by means of ZOOM platform, and the invited expert was Dr. Ignasi Casanova. It took place on July 8th.

He is Professor of Environmental Geochemistry at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and currently director of the Institute of Energy Technologies of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Additionally, he has participated in some Space Missions with the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.

This session with an expert took a different direction than the last one. We decided to make it more interactive with the members, so they could ask  Dr. Ignasi Casanova right from the beginning about their doubts and curiosities on the topic. Some of the topics mentioned were related with the mining of Helium-3 in the Moon, extraction of water from the martian regolith, the settlement of humans in the martian surface and the materials needed for building facilities in space.

It was a good instructive experience for all the members who attended the activity. We had the chance to solve all of our doubts and questions, and Dr. Ignasi was very committed to the activity. We would like to thank him for his motivation in this particular debate and his interest in general with our Chapter. We are really looking forward to welcoming him again.