The Race to Mine the Moon Is Taking Off, Here's What's Coming

NASA's quest to explore deep space is energizing a space mining boom on the Moon. »Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker »Watch more Focal Point | https://bit.ly/2s0cf7w » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com We’re going into a totally different phase of space; in order to continue exploring further into the great unknown, we are going to need the resources to do so. And it is simply too expensive to put everything a mission could possibly need on a rocket to space, and there’s actually a lot of resources in space we can utilize, it is just a matter of figuring out how. Enter: the Colorado School of Mines and Angel Abbud-Madrid who has been focused on the potential of space resources for decades. In this double feature Focal Point, we sit down with Angel, the Director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, to learn more about how mining the Moon works, why it is important, and what lunar mining could mean for the next generation of space exploration. Space resources are key if we want to explore further, and the Moon is the ultimate proving ground and is shaping up to be a critical destination in the 2020s. The big vision? Establish it as a celestial boomtown, where new technologies can be tested and the moon’s raw materials can be harnessed to power future missions. NASA plans to launch its own VIPER (Volatile Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission in late 2022, which entails sending a golf cart-sized rover to the Moon to prospect for water ice at the Moon’s south pole. Find out more about the future of space mining on the Moon and the next space frontier in this Focal Point, and stay tuned for Part 2 to learn more about what it will take to actually turn the moon’s water into rocket fuel. #spacemining #moon #NASA #resources #VIPER #space #FocalPoint #Seeker #Science Read More: Why mining the water on the Moon could open up space exploration https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/23/17769034/nasa-moo