Like Earth,
planetary bodies such as the moon, Mars, asteroids and comets contain substantial deposits of valuable resources.
This has caught the
attention of both researchers and industry, with hopes of one day mining them to support a space economy.
Think of minning,
extracting materials from various bodies in space and bringing them back to Earth. But this is unlikely to be the first commercially viable example.
If we wanted to establish
a permanent human presence on the moon we would need to resupply resources astronauts living there
Resources are extremely
expensive to launch from Earth. it cost about A$3,645 to launch one KG of material into low Earth orbit, and more to launch it higher
It's likely
materials mined in space will be used in space, to help save on these costs.