space. Early construction on the Moon will very likely use the common soil of the outer lunar surface. Since it is likely that the accessible portions of the lunar soil have no deposits of high grade minerals, techniques will have to be developed for the extraction of economically useful elements from low grades ores. These techniques will in many cases prove applicable to extraction of useful elements from low grade ores available in abundance on Earth, further reducing tensions of competition for resources here on Earth. One additional possibility should be mentioned here: the potential use of equatorial sites or low-latitude sites in developing countries as spaceports, especially if these are combined with tariff-free trade zones. Logistically, such launch and recovery sites can provide major improvements in rocket performance and thus in operating costs. A spaceport combined with a free-trade zone would provide major benefits to the host country, including stronger links with international trade, a new impetus for tourism, and a natural focus for the development of a technical and scientific cadre within the host country. Such possibilities are being explored by a number of developing countries in conjunction with the Earthport Project in Santa Barbara, California. It must be emphasized in this discussion that, although the technologies for these advanced possibilities are expensive and are being developed at the present time for the benefit of the developed countries which can presently afford them, their impact will be far greater and far more dramatic in the developing countries. To add one Solar Power Satellite to the electrical system in a country such as the United States would change its capacity by 2%; to add one Solar Power Satellite to the electrical system in India would increase India's electrical capacity by 40%. Clearly, the deployment of a communications satellite system in a country like Indonesia, which is scattered across hundreds of islands stretching over 8000 km of ocean, will be of far greater benefit than to provide such a satellite for continental Europe. It would thus be a serious error for developing countries to dismiss space technology as irrelevant to their needs. IV. POLICY QUESTIONS Many important issues must be examined if some of the ideas presented above are to be taken very seriously by developing countries: 1. By investing in space development, is the world being deprived of some of the most urgent resources needed for solving mundane problems? Space expenditures by the industrialized countries currently use only a small fraction of one percent of the Gross National Products of those countries. The benefits to developing countries have already been inestimable. 2. Are the countries advanced in space technologies ready to share their knowledge and benefits with other countries? In many cases, the past record already answers this question positively. In other cases (such as Solar Power Satellites), economic self-interest will encourage advanced countries to make the new technologies available at the earliest opportunity. 3. Is it necessary and possible to bring total international control over all space developments? Because of the vastness both of the resources and of space itself, it seems unnecessary and, perhaps, impossible to effect total control. 4. What will be the impact of large-scale space industrialization on the terrestrial environment? This is a question under active research in the United States. In
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