On this day of traditional thanksgiving, let’s also be grateful for something that’s a little less domestic than what usually concerns us today. Let’s be grateful for everyone working on the future of our species, too, whether that’s by adding to the population or by ensuring that it has somewhere to go.
This article is an excellent explication of the world of real space exploration and its economic and physical underpinnings, demonstrating the potential for a coming industrial revolution on a scale that we can only just begin to visualize.
In the world of fiction, this reference article provides background subject matter for SFF writers — a way to think about the intertwined motivations for expansion, economic development, technical opportunities, and species survival.
We live in much more interesting times, from the SFF POV, than I ever expected to see in my lifetime, what with Elon Musk et alia. Downright Heinleinian.
Now turn your world-building fiction acumen back in time and apply this same sort of mind set and opportunity to the historical Industrial Revolution. Or the development of the Silk Road. Or the recording of trading transactions on clay in cuneiform that kicks this whole thing off (more or less). What a world of development opportunity as a setting, and we don’t even have to leave the planet.
It’s a lot to be grateful for, as you contemplate your gluttony around the family table. Happy Turkey Day, and tell us all about it.
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “The Trillionaires of Mars”
I made a neighbor grateful today before lunch, when his golden retriever turned up wet and muddy (do they come any differently?) and introduced himself on my cabin porch. He’d been gone for an hour and a half, and while that was only perhaps a mile or two, up over and around the mountain hollows, it was several miles by car. That family gets to enjoy their Thanksgiving dinner after all. It’s a nice feeling.
I was researching the asteroid belt for a project recently (ended up pushing the colonies involved to the Kuiper belt for political reasons – felt like they needed to be more isolated for the story to work).
The sources I ran across all seemed pretty emphatic that what earth had not observed fissionables as asteroid content, so I would be curious to see the sources the author of that article is using to claim that there are tons of yuge, luxurious fissionables in the asteroids.
For fiction, I’m willing to handwave it, for private entrepreneurs, I’m willing to shrug and say they can spend their money as they please. Once my tax dollars get involved, and they probably will at some point whether I want them to or not, I want citations.
Sorry that came out grumpy. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Some more on that topic. https://www.sciencealert.com/are-asteroids-really-worth-a-fortune-heres-what-we-know
Or this analyzing chondrite-type meteorites:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0039914068800311?via%3Dihub
This is great, thank you!
And a happy Thanksgiving to all the Mad Genii here. (While I’m at it, to everyone else, too! Turkey is about to call me to slice.)
Thank you, you too! Hope you enjoyed!