Asteroid blasting and moon dust mitigation: You can major in that
Angel Abbud-Madrid embraced the space mania of the ’60s – he drank it down with Tang. At age 8, he watched the American moonwalk from his living room in Mexico, relieved that aliens didn’t intervene.
Through horn-rimmed glasses, Dr. Abbud-Madrid is still looking up. So are his students at the Colorado School of Mines – including an aspiring asteroid-blaster, moon-dust mitigators, and an entrepreneur with a NASA contract already in hand. All want careers in sustaining life in the obsidian expanse.
“It’s a unique moment in history to do it right,” says Dr. Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources.
Living off the land in space requires dreamers on Earth. Drawing on terrestrial lessons it dares not repeat – pillaged civilizations, environmental ruin – this Colorado public research university is rehearsing for a reality in the next frontier. Unlike settlers of old who stampeded this state with gold pans and picks, Mines students use far-out foresight: How should humans harness resources in space?
“If we’re going to
