Living In The Asteroid Belt – part 1 – Introduction
INTRODUCTION
The first question to be answered about this topic is why we should live in the asteroid belt instead of on planets. The main answer is simply that once we have found a way to climb up out of the gravity well that has trapped us here on this planet for so long, we are not going to easily decide to go back down into another gravity well.
The reason we are so focused on living on planets is because that is the center of our experience. We are born inside a womb where we are protected and nourished and also limited. Then we push our way out of the womb into a new world that is harsh and hard by comparison. We adapt to the new world quickly and don’t consider climbing back into the womb. Once we have adapted to the new world of living in space, we won’t consider going back into the womb space of a planetary well of gravity.
It’s not easy to confront the new idea of living in space because we take for granted here on the surface of Earth that we have air and water and food to sustain our life. Space seems empty, bleak, and harsh by comparison. But that fact is that air and water are to be found in abundance in the asteroid belt as frozen volatile gases. Once we learn how to mine the rocks and extract them they will become available although retaining their status as precious and valuable because of our urgent need for them. We’ll also need to learn to recycle all such valuable resources and waste none of them.
Once we understand that we can live in space in a state of abundance and freedom, the question of living in space versus living on a planet will look different.
The next article in this series will be about:
GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
