The integration of in-situ use of space resources has the potential to completely revolutionise the way space exploration is being conducted. In the long term, it can decrease the costs associated with space flights, it can make our activities in space cleaner and bring circularity into the space equation.

In the first episode of the series, we would like to understand more about what space resources are and the potential they have in making space exploration a cleaner and more sustainable activity. We have asked Katherine Joy, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Manchester to share her experience as a planetary scientist, as a space enthusiast and as someone who has been to one of the most remote places in the world to conduct science.

This series is brought to by the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). It is produced in collaboration with SciLux.

References and sources:

Shackleton, Ernest (1911). The Heart of the Antarctic. London

Famous space missions:

Curiosity: www.planetary.org/space-missions/curiosity

Perseverance: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Endurance: endurance22.org/history-of-endurance

Sound effects: www.freesound.org

E.H. Shackelton intervention: UCSB Cylinder Archive: www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder1859

Sounds from the Apollo 11 post-landing: history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.postland.html