Asteroids: Cross and Delight. Credits: created with Assistance from OpenAI’s DALL·E
They were here before planets were finished, before oceans formed, before life had a chance to emerge. And they are still here, quietly orbiting, occasionally reminding us of their presence.
Listen to Never Gets Old by Sinead O’Connor to enjoy reading this post.
For most of history, we looked at them as omens. Then we studied them as objects. More recently, we learned to calculate their trajectories and measure their risks. Chicxulub, Tunguska, Chelyabinsk. Each event pushed humanity a little further toward awareness and coordination.
But asteroids are not only about danger. They are fragments of creation, raw materials scattered across the Solar System, archives of early chemistry, potential propellant depots, and foundations for future infrastructure.
On the updated Asteroids: Cross and Delight page, I revisited this duality: the cross of extinction, the delight of expansion.
From planetary defense and the institutional maturity it requires, to in-space resource utilization and the possibility of building around these ancient rocks rather than fearing them, the page now follows a clearer arc. Not sensational. Not utopian. Just potential.
Because asteroids never get old.
What changes is how we relate to them. And that, perhaps, says more about us than about the rocks themselves.
Read the updated page here: Asteroids: Cross and Delight.
Space for All, all for Space!
Becoming Spacepolitans 