Public Forum on Space Mining: Promises and Consequences

Sara Russell will discuss the scientific and economic benefits of extracting resources from celestial bodies and the conditions under which their return to Earth is viable. She will be joined by a panel of experts from a range of disciplines, including Jeremy Hansen (astronaut, CSA), Tanja Masson (Space Law, University of Leiden and the Hague Working Group on Space Resources), Melissa Rice (Western Mars Lab, Western Washington University, and UBC faculty members, to discuss the legal, industrial and ethical complexities of space resource extraction.

Sponsored by the Outer Space Institute, the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, and Green College.

Sara Russell is a Merit Researcher in Cosmic Mineralogy and planetary sciences. Her research interests are in the formation of the Solar System and the evolution of the Earth's Moon. Russell's group currently works on topics such as the origin of water in the Solar System and geological processes in asteroids. She is a Science Team member of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, an Editor of CUP's Chondrules book, and proud namesake of Asteroid Sararussell.