posted 01-28-2015 10:46 AM               

The emerging asteroid mining industry has extremely ambitious intentions. It is within the realm of possibility that their work may usher in a change in global economics as profound as the Industrial Revolution. As may be expected, press reports dealing with asteroid mining have been numerous, ranging in scope from short and breezy to broad and serious, and in quality from accurate to impressionistic to simply uninformed. There is good reason to be curious about what may be the biggest game-changer in human economic history. And there is good reason to look closely at the underlying science and engineering that form the foundation of this work.

• Hardcover: 192 pages
  
• Publisher: WaveCloud Corporation (December 12, 2014)
  
• ISBN-10: 0990584208
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0990584209

posted 01-28-2015 11:39 AM               

Here is DSI's description of "Asteroid Mining 101":

The book documents how space miners are working to discover the richest near Earth asteroids (NEAs) and transform them into the essentials required for an ever-growing human presence beyond the planet's surface. The book traces how meteorites – pieces of asteroids that have fallen to Earth – give us a window into the abundant resources that await space miners, from metals to build space settlements to fuel and oxygen to operate them. However, the most valuable asteroid types carrying abundant water and hydrocarbons remain mysterious – they are so fluffy and fragile that samples almost never reach the ground. Dr. Lewis notes that the luckiest asteroid prospectors will be those that find NEAs that actually are dormant comets comprised of 75 percent water and other volatiles.

"Reading Asteroid Mining 101 made me want to grab my favorite pickaxe and put on a spacesuit," said Geoff Notkin, science writer and host of TV's Meteorite Men and STEM Journals. "Almost everything that I care most about can be found within the pages of this remarkable work: meteorites, comets, asteroids, robots, geology, mining and even spaceships. Dr. Lewis goes into fascinating detail on the origin and composition of meteorites, then takes us on a journey to the asteroids themselves. The reader begins to grasp the staggering scientific and material wealth awaiting us within these cosmic rubble piles."

Dr. Lewis estimates that once humanity establishes itself in Earth orbit and beyond, NEA resources could support 400 billion people living in abundance – more than 50 times today's global population. These asteroid-derived resources could be recycled and reformed to keep space civilization running indefinitely, relying on the Sun to provide the required energy.

NEAs orbit the Sun in roughly the same path that Earth follows and offer immense opportunities to improve human existence; 12,000 have been charted to date, out of an estimated two million. Expanding to the main belt asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter would enable a human population 100,000 times larger. The amount of innovation and accomplishment possible from a space-based civilization is staggering.