Asteroids

How Love, Fear, and Greed Will Determine Our Future in Space

By: Martin Elvis

Narrated by: Nigel Patterson

A unique, wide-ranging examination of asteroid exploration and our future in space

Human travel into space is an enormously expensive and unforgiving endeavor. So why go? In this accessible and authoritative book, astrophysicist Martin Elvis argues that the answer is the asteroid exploration, for the strong motives of love, fear, and greed.

Elvis's personal motivation is one of scientific love-asteroid investigations may teach us about the composition of the solar system and the origins of life. A more compelling reason may be fear - of a dinosaur killer-sized asteroid hitting our planet.

Finally, Elvis maintains, we should consider greed: Asteroids likely hold vast riches, such as large platinum deposits, and mining them could provide both a new industry and a funding source for bolder space exploration. Elvis explains how each motive can be satisfied, and how they help one another. From the origins of life, to "space billiards," and space sports, Elvis looks at how asteroids may be used in the not-so-distant future.

©2021 Martin Elvis (P)2021 Tantor

A great overview of asteroids

Dr Elvis is a brilliant thinker and has organized his ideas in this book in a really useful framework: love, fear and greed. He provides context for why we feel all these emotions about asteroids - love of the science and knowledge they can unlock, fear of the destruction they could cause if they hit earth and greed for the resources in asteroids that we may harvest for business. Highly recommended!

Outstanding book

Very informative book. Very well written and narrated. Gives a very accurate description of the challenges and opportunities ahead in the new space economy.

Well organized and compelling

This is a well organized and compelling tomb on why go to space. The major focus is on the asteroid belt, but the whole solar system is our ultimate prize. It breaks the problem down using the courtroom trio of motivation, means, and opportunity.

The book's subtitle is about the three motivations:

- Love i.e. the desire for scientific study
- Fear i.e. the need to protect Earth from impactors
- Greed i.e. the potential for profit in asteroid mining