Colorado School of Mines Launches First Space Mining Degree

The Colorado School of Mines, the only institution that currently offers advanced degrees in resources in outer space, has launched an undergraduate degree that focuses on mining in space. This program is aimed at preparing the people who will participate on the front line of future mining projects, especially in space.

According to Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Space Resources Center at the Colorado School of Mines, the motivation for the undergrad degree program is to draw a line between the facts and the speculations about space mining. While no one will be looking to extract platinum and other such precious minerals from outer space just yet, anything that space explorers can lay their hands on is valuable since it is currently extremely expensive to send materials from Earth to outer space in order to sustain life.

Abbud-Madrid draws attention to how important mining has always been with regard to outer space exploration by pointing out that even when NASA held its first meeting in 1962, miners were in attendance, and the search has been on since then to keep pushing the capabilities of mining in outer space.

With the passage of time, interest in space mining has broadened away from NASA and the United States to other countries, including Japan, Russia, North Korea, Russia, India and many others. The Colorado School of Mines has also seen the interest of private companies grow, and that is likely to accelerate the rate at which progress is made in space mining.

The Colorado School of Mines’ undergrad degree will include courses in space mining and  aerospace engineering as well as other minors that are taught to each new group joining the school.

Abbud-Madrid reveals that the school will undertake a mission to the moon at the end of 2022, and the students who enroll for the undergraduate degree will have an opportunity to participate in collecting essential materials from the moon.

Before that mission, however, students will be required to gain competences in how to identify the resources present on the surface of the moon and how to use lunar resources as well as remote sensing, planetary geology and other foundational courses.

Many challenges will have to be overcome before space mining can become a reality. For example, little is known about the impact of prolonged exposure to temperature extremes in outer space or the risks that come with loss of control over equipment in such a hostile environment; numerous other unknowns exist as well.

The Colorado School of Mines hopes to play its part in addressing those challenges and moving space mining closer to reality.

It would be interesting to see which space mining technologies can find immediate application in the operations of terrestrial mining industry players such as First Energy Metals Ltd. (CSE: FE) (OTCQB: FEMFF), which is always on the lookout for ways to get an edge in the industry.

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to First Energy Metals Ltd. (CSE: FE) (OTCQB: FEMFF) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/FEMFF

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