The Colorado School of Mines is no longer concerned with just earthly matters.

The world-renowned science and engineering institution in Golden is now eyeing asteroids, the moon, Mars and beyond to explore, extract, process and use the raw materials they provide to help sustain life in space.

Mines hopes to launch a first-of-its kind interdisciplinary graduate program in space resources in 2018, pending approval by school leaders. The first course, Space Resources Fundamentals, is being offered as a pilot program this fall.

Officials hope to follow with a new space systems engineering course, design project class and seminar series in the spring semester.

All of the classes will focus on preparing the next generation of scientists and engineers to responsibly extract natural resources offered in space, including water, gases, minerals and metals, to fuel space exploration, said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Mines Center for Space Resources and research associate professor in mechanical engineering.

This living-off-the-land approach will save resources on Earth and make space exploration safer and more affordable, officials said.

At some point we will be able to refuel in space, so we can keep that space craft flying, Abbud-Madrid said. We can cut our dependency on Earth.

Graduates of the Mines program will work from Earth initially, analyzing materials pulled out by robots and designing systems to turn raw materials into usable fuel for space programs, Abbud-Madrid said.

There is nothing really radical about the approach taken by Mines, he said.

Its a lot like taking a cross-country trip, he said. You are not going to take all that fuel you will need to get to the West Coast, so you stop along the way to fuel up. Then when you get to your destination you get the fuel and food there, you dont call home and try and get it sent to you. Its the same idea.

As we spend months, even years, in space, we need to look at ways to cut our dependency on Earth, he said.

The program would not only look at the technical aspects of space extraction but also the economic, policy and legal aspects as well, Abbud-Madrid said.

Instructors would draw from a multidisciplinary group of experts in academia, space agencies and the private sector, school officials said. Students would likely come from those same discipines, Abbud-Madrid said.

Its only fitting that Mines would spearhead the program since the school has a world-renowned presence in remote sensing, geomechanics, mining, metallurgy, robotics, advanced manufacturing, electrochemistry, resource economics and solar and nuclear energy, Mines officials said.

No other institution has the specialized expertise related to resource extraction and utilization that we have at Mines, Kevin Moore, dean of the College of Engineering and Computational Sciences, said. It makes good sense for us to apply that expertise in this new area.

Backers of the program hope that post-baccalaureate certificates, masters degrees and doctoral degrees will be offered next fall.

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School of Mines hopes to launch first-ever space mining program - The Denver Post