Limits To Growth: Mining Asteroids

New York

In The Wall Street Journal, there is a new techno-utopian article about mining asteroids as a solution to resource scarcity:

“Is the earth running out of minerals?

A recent and widely publicized proposal to mine asteroids for nickel, platinum and other key ingredients for metals is based in part on the notion that we face scarcity in the not-too-distant future.

How much is a matter of debate, as is the capacity of sonar, radar and drilling technology to find new resources—which may not match civilization’s ever-growing appetite for metal-based products from replacement knee joints and oil pipes to catalytic converters and iPads.

Investors led by Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page and film director James Cameron in April launched Planetary Resources Inc., based in Bellevue, Wash., with a message that the Earth’s resources could soon fail to meet the technological needs of a population spiraling toward 10 billion.

Caterpillar Inc., one of the world’s largest makers of mining equipment, has already joined with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to design space-mining gear.”

Wouldn’t you have to get to space first?

I suppose you could reach the asteroid belt beyond Mars if you first had a means of getting into orbit, which we don’t have anymore, or more plausibly to Newt Gingrich’s lunar colony, although we haven’t been to the moon in 40 years.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

21 Comments

  1. To Oculus III
    I can not go anywhere else for I am of the tribe of Curmudgeonites whose Forefather- Ancestors battled the Status-Quomites by the Shores of the Gichigumee in the days when our Curmudgeonite Forefather, The Blessed and Holy Markeal Twainael, called us Curmudgeons to eternal and ever-vigilant obstinacy , intractability, intransigence, mulishness, pertinacity ( one of my favorites ), in addition to Calling Us to The Supreme And Cardinal Virtue : COMMON SENSE.
    I have a Holy and Sacred Duty to Walk The Path of my Forefathers before me, for I am Bounden In The Blood to Uphold my Ancestors Curmudgeonly Ways. All Praise to Markael Twainael — “beatae memoriae” – of blessed memory.
    Deo Pertinactio Eternae
    Pertinacity Yesterday. Pertinacity Today. Pertinacity Tomorrow And Forever!
    Gaudeamus Igitur; In the vulgate, So Let Us Rejoice!

  2. Apuleius: I meant of course that “Flannery O’Connor and I would agree“. Her “Christ-haunted South” where a man can “carry Jesus around in his head like a stinger” is the real South.

    As a Catholic myself, I sometimes think that only a Catholic Southerner can truly see Dixie as she is.

  3. I think I know what you mean, Robert.

    The Old South, firm in faith, with some semblance of unity among Christians.
    More is the pity it died at the hands of the fanatical Yankees in the 1860’s.
    The New South that followed possessed a degraded form of this patrimony.
    Still met with its destruction from a different set of fanatical Yankees in the 1960’s.

    Coinciding with the beginning of the auto-destruction of the Church herself.
    It seems that I have spent my entire life among ruins, watching time devour hope amid the incessant cacophony of the blind. What surprises me most is that I still retain any hope at all.

    The gnawing realization grows that the cause for this decline is that most are already spiritually dead and thus no better than the savages they denounce and fear.

    They might rejoice to know there is but one last pope for them to denounce.
    The present being Gloria Olivae; the last, Petrus Romanus.

    This lady sees, and it transcends left or right or any religious category. All are afflicted.
    Self-congratulatory, neo-babelist wordsmiths fail.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathleen-falsani/occupywallstreet-without-_b_1017827.html

    Where there is no vision, the people perish.

    Deo Vindice

  4. I like common sense practical arguments. We can’t even get most Whites to turn their thinking back 60 years to pre BRA ways of thinking, how in the hell do you think people will go back thousand plus years in their thinking?

    I judge things/ people on a very simple criteria. Strength, physical, moral, mental etc; what they produce and can I trust them in a fire fight. The neo pagans I know fail on all accounts

    I use to bang a neo pagan chick, man was she pretty (a hard 8 face and body) and good in the sack but her and her crew are worthless past a quick roll.

    Every pagan male I know are weak and pathetic men expect for one, and he went back to the Christian church while he had cancer. There’s some strong faith in odin for you. The pagan women I’ve meet are feminist and whores and very, very much on the side of BRA. thor wore a dress and got his ass kicked; the pagan gods lost to White men of the One True God. The old pagans sacrificed their own children and buried their bodies at the entrance of their towns and villages. Who among you wants to do that? I’m not going to hang my beloved horse from a tree in the attempt to appeal to some weak, one eyed “god” who dies in the end battle. What a joke, no power no nothing in the “old gods”.

    The few pagans I know in Europe aren’t really pagan they are non believers who like the imagery but in no way actually believe in the old gods. People who make believe, again another joke. The imagery is impressive no doubt and I enjoy reading about their old accomplishments in battle, but Christians have their own very bad ass imagery like the Templar’s and other knights

    The West and the South were at its height of power as a Christian people. Our Southron heroes where men of the Almighty, Jackson, Lee, Washington even Jefferson signed his letters ‘in Christ”, and the men who did the killing and the women who suffered with grace and dignity were people of the God of the Bible.

    When I’m at power-lifting contests, then men sporting religious tattoos have portraits of Christ, crosses and Bible verses on them. When I’m at strongman contest men say I can’t stay the weekend because I’m preaching on Sunday, I’m a youth pastor or I have church ( plus the tats)

    At work, I’ve only worked with one pagan, and like I said he bailed on it when he was scared. Almost all the men are “Christians” (infrequent attendances, very small knowledge of the Bible etc) and we kicked the only satanist I worked with out of the Rangers for being a coward under fire. I’ve seen three cowards under fire, two negros and a non Christian White male

    The more Christian a man and his family is, the more likely they are not to support BRA and have more kids. Maybe even own guns, but that’s combining polls. Can’t say that about any other group of Whites and the pagans I know do not breed. To self centered for it from what I can tell, that and to busy playing medieval dress up

    And then there are the very well reasoned and argued egghead things about how your religion makes your civilization and not the other way round

  5. And if you only hang out in biker bars, after awhile you will get to thinking Harley Davidson’s are 95 percent of the motorcycles in the world and that most bikers are big tough white guys with big bellies and beards who wear black leather.

    And if you live here where I live, you get to thinking that cancer kills about seven out of ten people before age sixty.

    And if you live in Kentucky, you still think that 80 percent of people smoke cigarettes.

    And if you live in California, you think that only Mexicans do farm work or do dishes or wash cars.

    And each member of each group I described above sincerely truly believes that.

    It is called a solipsism.

  6. “What were the odds of the Welsh Revival?”

    I didn’t figure you would actually want to address what I asked. You know full well the odds are right at ZERO.

    It ain’t gonna happen. Which is why the entire Christianity answer to our plight is academic.

  7. The only valid arguments are the ones you can back up with personal experience/ observations. All the egg head stuff like this is pure bullshit when it hits the real world. Going with theory vs observation and real life experience has given us BRA, and more theory isn’t going to get us out of this mess.

  8. You can all talk about how great christianity is if you want to, but it’s because of christianity the white race is in such a mess. Christianity never had the kind of spiritual force to stop any internecine war within the white race. Quite the opposite, christianity always accentuated and aggravated the divisions within the race. The catholic church always fomented war, then later the lutherans, then the anglicans,etc.
    I’m talking about internecine war — whites killing down fellow whites– christian churches were never averse to fomenting war amongst whites.
    Putting that aside, what we’re expected to believe is just downright absurd. You have put your brain on “lockdown” mode to accept and believe the doctrines. It’s a very unnatural and irrational religion at it’s core. The new testament stories are puerile- very childish, if not downright absurd and ridiculous.
    I have no issue with christian morality, that makes sense to me. The problem with christian morality , however, is that the morality is tied into the belief in the resurrection. Instead of just preaching that morality is about keeping a family- and by extension, a people and a folk together– christianity preaches morality based on the premise of a “heavenly reward”. One must believe in the resurrection plus be moral to get the reward. Well, many ( most, if one is honest about it) people- even churchgoers – don’t truly believe the new testament miracle stories, including the resurrection. Many figure they might as well be immoral ’cause they don’t believe the miracle stories anyway. That’s always been the case. It is not a new phenomenon. There’re alot of church-goers who don’t truly believe, but they go through the motions in order to fit in. It casts a certain phoniness to the religion. The Christian “smirk” is infamous around the world.
    In the meantime, those whites who are honest about not believing the new testament but still retain a love for their heritage and people and don’t have any animosity towards christianity : they just don’t take it literally, are rejected and shunned. The world of christianity loses their insights, the possible gifts they could bring to our culture, and ultimately, their loyalty. It causes a great divide within the white race right there, before one even factors in all the other deep divisions based on church/denominational issues.The whole situation with christianity is absurd. At this point in history, after the internecine war called WW2– 60 million dead whites killed down by fellow whites ( from all churches* ), christianity is now untenable.Christianity lies dead under the rubble of Dresden and a hundred other European cities left in ruin and destruction.
    Christianity is played out. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it,necessarily. It’s just the way it is. There’s not going to be any Christian revival in the West. It was Christians who destroyed Christianity in their great rush to induge in internecine war. It was Christians who “killed ” Christianity — not jews. As it was some kind of collective desire to destroy christianity — we as a race got what we wanted. Considering the collective desire of the white race to put an end to Christianity– it remains for the white race now to find a more intelligent and more sustainable faith. One that speaks to the heart, to the mind, to the soul, that calls us to common sense , and to a true respect for our race ( and it can be done without devolving into nazis and/or fascists, and hatred for other peoples). The new faith must include a love and a respect for the animal kingdom and the world of nature — it’s the very world we’re born into. It’s the height of hubris and stupidity to have a faith that centers only on our specialness – our souls and our relationship with God –at the expense of the everything else in the world. Were not that special. We’re not that wonderful. We can have a relationship with a personal God without looking down our noses at the whole world we’re born into– and without turning our backs on common sense and while respecting the differences that exist between various groups within the white race. ( a very good number of the so-called differences wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for all the various churches constantly harping on the subject)
    * the pacificists christians in the US who didn’t go to war in WW2 were buying up farmland like no one’s business during the war . They loved the war just like everyone else, just in a different way, that’s all. And yes, deep down, everyone who partook in the internecine war loved it — to pretend otherwise is just more christian phoniness. Just like all the phoniness I hear from so many about how upset they are about the war-between-the-states. It’s very fey and phony.

  9. TO: Robert Oculus III
    Your visceral reaction to my post proves my point very well. Thank you for making my point for me in such a succint and abundantly clear manner.
    (How desperate you are to label me a zionist — when you know fully well I am anything but a zionist). Jack Ryan doesn’t want us to use the symbol for laughing online ; So instead, I will say I’m not the least bit suprised by your response to some truth. Please God, anything but truth. Your response to my post can be compared to the response of a despondent voyager trying to hold on to the railing of the Titanic as it sinks into the North Atlantic.

  10. To : Stonelifter
    Please go help Oculus. He’s drowning in visceral bile and fluids. Your good at lifting stones — based on the “manly” handle you have ascribed to yourself — perhaps you can lift Oculus 3 from his despondency. It’s the least you can do for a “fellow voyager”.

  11. “The only valid arguments are the ones you can back up with personal experience/ observations. All the egg head stuff like this is pure bullshit when it hits the real world. Going with theory vs observation and real life experience has given us BRA, and more theory isn’t going to get us out of this mess.”

    Yes, but your observational evidence can’t be too limited, and you have to recognize when your observational evidence can be applied to the overall picture. There are all kinds of examples where only observational evidence doesn’t mean as much. I gave some of those above.

    If you are from a family that nearly all members have a lot of musical talent, and you live in an area where there are a lot of others like that, and go strictly by observation and experience, it would be easy to wonder why the average person can’t easily learn to play half a dozen music instruments.

    And if you are white and live in a 90 percent white area all of your life, then your observations and experiences will not match very well someone who lives in a heavily diverse area.

    You have to know how to evaluate evidence to know how useful it is relative to the whole of the country. Your reasoning above, that of not sitting back and thinking it out well enough, is exactly why much of what is happening is going on. The Northeast Yankee is doing just what you are doing. He thinks your observation and experience is just like his, and that you are just lying to support “racism.”

    You are only half right. Theory has to match observation, it is true, or the theory is flawed. But like everything else, you must take into account nuances and location. Someone who only has lived in Alaska might think that it stays daylight half the year everywhere. If he went strictly by observation and experience, his theory would be wrong.

    The true state of affairs is that you and the Yankee have the order mixed up. A *comprehensive and general* theory should come first, that takes account of ALL locations, and *THEN* you see how well observation supports the theory. You can’t get it right by restricting your theory to ONLY local data. In most cases, you can’t look out your window and formulate a theory based only on that.

    Observational evidence strengthens a theory; observation is a check on the theory. Observation as a starting point of a theory ONLY works if you are reasonably sure you have made observations in enough locations to believe the subject under observation is general.

    What your post is really trying to postulate is LAZYNESS. Most “eggheads” today want to be considered smart “intellectuals” but they don’t want to do the enormous amount of REAL study and work to become an actual intelligent and knowledgeable man or woman. They instead are lazy and want to only do a minimum amount of work.

    YOU are being lazy. You want to do away with all that “egghead” stuff and take the first easy path you find to supply an answer.

    It is true about Occam’s razor. It usually is the SIMPLEST answer. But I have found that people who have actually solved problems and provide correct solutions and answers, and whose answers are simple, are usually only simple in the sense that you say, “Yeah, I see that now. Why didn’t I see that myself. Of course that is simple, duh!” But it is not at all so self evident and actually took a lot of work to get to that simple solution or answer.

  12. “The problem with christian morality…is that the morality is tied into the belief in the resurrection…christianity preaches morality based on the promise of a ‘heavenly reward.’ One must believe in the resurrection plus be moral to get the reward…. It casts a certain phoniness to the religion. The Christian ‘smirk’ is infamous around the world…. There’s not going to be any Christian revival in the West…it remains for the white race now to find a more intelligent and more sustainable faith.”

    There may or may not be a widespread Christian revival, but for your own revival, read the Bible.

  13. @ Moderator
    Thank you removing my post in response to Mosin. I apologize for all the typos. I wasn’t wearing my reading glasses when I typed the post you were so kind to delete. It won’t happen again.
    @ Mosin :
    I’ve read the bible my times. It has too many mixed messages for my liking. I don’t particularly care for it. It’s something we’ll always have to respectfully disagree about.

  14. Just in time for the next War-Between-The-States, the schmoozies at the TCM are playing the Old -Time Epic Tale of Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler and beloved “Tara” , starring the darkie Hattie McDaniel as dear ole’ ” Mammy”.
    YES! IT’S : “GONE WITH THE WIND”
    Selznick Int’l Pctures, Inc. : 1939
    I hope the ” front man” Robert Osborne doesn’t shoot his mouth off for 45 minutes before the movie starts. Front men are very annoying that way, you know.
    Check your local listings for time.

  15. Great article over at Henry Makow’s website about circumcision. Circumcision is from the ancient egyptian religion. It was passed on to the Jews, then the Moslems, and during the past 140 years or so, passed down to the Christian white world. Very good article with good links for even more info at the end of the article.
    ” Circumcision Should be Stopped” at ” henrymakow” (.com)
    I mention this article because there’s been some controversy here at “OD” about the subject about a week ago. Makow’s article doesn’t get into the ancient egyptian aspect of circumcision , that can be found online by an engine search (es).
    Both Judaism and Christianity have been greatly influenced by the ancient religion of the egyptians. That’s one reason we have egyptian symbology all over our paper money ( Except for circumcision, I don’t know enough about Islam to say how much the religion of ancient egypt influenced Islam).
    There’s no good reason to get anti-semitic about this subject ( if you’re opposed to circumcision) ; We have many semitic influences in Christianity as it is ; Semitic influences brought into the West by our own white Christian leaders. Also, there’re alot of jews against circumcision.
    I post this for the sake of information only. It’s always good to learn as much as you can about any subject.

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