RacerX
Donator
I have a question. I don't want to start a poll, but I am very curious on your guys thoughts about mankind's motivation to get off this planet and explore the universe. My question is this. If rare minerals such as gold,silver,diamonds, precious gems such as emeralds and ruby's etc...were found somewhere in our solar system how would this affect the current progress of mankind's quest for deep space exploration and the search for life? While we all know we get bogged down in political and economic reasons for the slow progress and current pace of our current space programs, what if these minerals were found? How fast or would it accelerate our current progress? Yes "they" say it is about finding other life...and that would be wonderful! But I would take a wild guess that IF these minerals were to be found (enough to fund a multi-billion/trillion dollar space program in return on a investment if you will) if this current pace of manned exploration would turn into a type of "Gold rush" like was seen in the 1800's in California. I would be willing to bet that space exploration would all of the sudden see a major acceleration in how fast mankind leaves this planet for deep space. In other words instead of saying "I wonder if it would happen in my lifetime" it would be more like " I wonder if it will happen in the next year or two?" And also lets say the "Gold Rush" did occur how would this affect global economy's here on earth if a sudden influx of "Space Gold" did hit the global markets. Would it be worth more? Would it be worth less? Create more jobs? Less jobs? A global migration to go where the work is? Could this reason cause wars for example? What If for example Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser beam at a rock on Mars and during its analysis instead found for example gold? Would the priority of current space programs suddenly change from "finding life" to "mine the minerals" mission? I don't know but something in my gut tells me money would then become priority. I look forward to your thoughts. 
