The idea of mining the planets, Moon, asteroids, and comets for their valuable mineral resources is not new. Science fiction writers began weaving tales of space mines, worked by crusty, usually antisocial old prospectors, in the 1930s. Invariably, these difficult, dirty, lonely operations in the far frontiers of the solar system resembled the mines in a more familiar frontier situation-the nineteenth-century American West. There were "decadent boom towns with grossly inflated prices," University of Arizona scientist John S. Lewis points out in his recent book about space mining. These stories also featured "boisterous min- ers in town for a few days to pick up supplies and go on a bender," along with "slick gamblers, painted women, and a variety of dubious establishments."41

Not surprisingly, drunk miners, gamblers, and painted women were not part of the vision...