"As we enter the 21st century, humankind must deal with the energy crisis, the depletion of natural resources and the pollution of the earth. The solution to all these problems lies beyond the earth by tapping the vast resources of the solar system, in particular the Moon and asteroids, as a source of materials and the sun as a source of power, which will also remove to outer space some of the major sources of pollution. Uncountable dollars worth of metals, fuels, and life-sustaining substances await in nearby space. Vast amounts of these important substances are locked away--for now--in the asteroids, comets, moons and planets of our own solar system. The abundant resources of the solar system, including effectively limitless solar energy, could support a vast civilization of 1016 people"; that's over a million times our present population. John S. Lewis argues in his book Mining The Sky that the "shortage of resources is an illusion born of ignorance."
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