Welcome to the companion website for the upcoming exploratory seminar Space Resources: Promising and Problematic?  We are very excited for the seminar and we look forward to seeing everyone soon. Please feel free to explore this website. We will strive to make sure that the most up-to-date information is installed. Thank you.

Executive Summary

The idea that the vast resources of the asteroids and the Moon could be exploited for human benefit – or “mining the sky” as it has been called - has long been the stuff of science fiction, but now is rapidly becoming an engineering reality. That these space resources could be the basis for a profitable industry in the near future gives a new urgency to studying the possibilities and the consequences that arise, including the expansion of humanity’s domain into space. Research that encompasses all that the use of space resources touches spans an enormous range of disciplines, from engineering and astronomy to business and law, on to ethics, anthropology, and to our self-understanding via the humanities. This Radcliffe Seminar will examine both the promise and the problematic nature of the harnessing of space resources from all these perspectives.

Exploratory Seminar Leaders

Martin Elvis
Astrophysicist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Matthew Weinzierl
Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School