asteroids rather than from the Earth, while the availability of free metals in asteroids would eliminate many of the complex steps of chemical processing needed for fabrication of Solar Power Satellites from lunar materials. The possibility of retrieving metals from asteroids for delivery to the Earth's surface has also been discussed. One study has shown that the cost of delivering fragments of a nickel-iron asteroid may be economically competitive almost immediately. The separated metal would be melted with solar energy, made into a metal/vacuum foam, shaped into a lifting body, deorbited by a variety of technical means to land in the ocean just offshore, and towed ashore for use in conventional industries. It is interesting to note that approximately half of the total world production of nickel between 1961 and 1965 came from the Sudbury Astrobleme in Ontario, Canada. This deposit is probably asteroidal in origin, so that it is likely that nonterrestrial materials are already in use here on Earth. In the more distant future, perhaps as little as three decades from now, the apparent attractiveness of space agronomy offers the possibility of raising food in orbit more economically and reliably than here on Earth, assuming a highly developed program of space industrialization will have been implemented. Large quantities of mature crops could be dehydrated, loaded inside lifting bodies made of metal/vacuum foam, and delivered offshore from potential consumers. As population growth continues here on Earth, as water resources become more scarce in some major agricultural regions of Earth, as fossil fuels and fertilizers become more expensive, and as drought and other adverse climatic factors continue to cause major fluctuations in food production on Earth, it is possible that the costs of food produced in space and delivered to the Earth may become cheaper than conventional farming down here. Although these estimates and possibilities are clearly preliminary, they indicate that a healthy and vigorous economy in space, independent of the biosphere of Earth, may permit the delivery to Earth of a virtually unlimited and reliable supply of materials, food, and energy for future generations as little as 30 years from now. These possibilities could relieve the immense pressures the human race now perceives in its attempts to manage its Earthly endowment of nonrenewable energy and material resources and its food supply. The promise of such advanced concepts in space utilization merit serious attention by all the nations of the Earth. III. NEEDS OF THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES What are some of the key problems and needs of developing countries as they struggle to raise the quality of life for their peoples? Most of the developing countries suffer from a lack of accessible (or identified) material and energy resources, from a lack of sufficient numbers of skilled workers in a wide variety of fields, from a lack of usable information, and from a lack of adequate communications and transportation facilities, both domestically and internationally. Further problems in many developing countries include lack of potable water, lack of medical personnel and facilities, lack of financial credit for agriculture, and (in some cases) inequitable land distribution patterns. All of these factors can create serious impediments to efforts to raise the standard of living of the population and to slow down the rapid increase in population which can dilute the effects of increases in national economic production. In the next section, we wish to indicate some of the possibilities which the utilization of space resources in the next one to three decades can offer to help alleviate some of these problems in developing nations. We do not wish to suggest that outer space
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