Came across this while researching mass drivers

Its a paper from the Space Studies Institute.  I am reading it now.  It has a lot of the same ideas that I have been discussing.  I knew about these guys from an Al Fin blog post in October.   The paper is called "A Space Roadmap: Mine the Sky, Defend the Earth, and Settle the Universe.  Not to compare myself to this guy, but what I have written here on the subject is a lot like what I have read so far.  That makes me no further out there than they are.  For whatever that's worth.

Update:  Here's an interesting quote in light of what I posted just this morning:

We can imagine a point, sometime in the future, where the manufacturing cost per unit mass is as low in space as it is on the surface of the Earth. Well before that time, however, space manufacturing will have an advantage in the construction of plants for base load power. At some time, slightly more distant, we can imagine that the manufacturing cost of space derived materials will be cheaper than those produced on the surface of the earth for the simple reason that one of the primary inputs, energy, will always be much cheaper in space.

Wow!

Here's another which dovetails nicely with what I wrote recently:

The failure to develop this critical spacefaring technology is an indictment of our national space enterprise.

And this:

Despite the crying need for such a system, and despite the demonstration that such systems are possible, none yet suitable for space settlements or indeed more modest missions has been developed. Such development is clearly within the purview of NASA’s mission and should be undertaken with the idea that the survival and prosperity of the human race may depend on it.

Good stuff.  Read it all.

Update:  Found an article that is somewhat related to the discussion of mining the sky.  Here is a comment that says the same thing this article says.  The article was on Popsci and it was about diamonds on other planets and the possibility of mining them some day.