Construction Work Planned for Outer Space

The construction projects all over Sioux Falls seem overwhelming at times. There are orange cones and cranes everywhere I'm driving to.

And it's not just Sioux Falls. how about Sioux City? The construction there along I-29 started when I was in high school. It's still going on today, and I graduated in 1980.

We may be running out of places to do construction work. But wait, how about if we go to outer space? We could do work there, there's a lot of places we could dig!

Caterpillar, one of the largest construction companies in the world, is aiming for a spot on the lunar surface and plans to adapt its range of autonomous and remote-controlled mining equipment for use in space.

NASA previously collaborated with Caterpillar between 2004 and 2013 on a project pairing construction and robotics. Mining expeditions to the Moon, Mars, and even nearby asteroids have been on NASA's agenda for decades.

I have to ask, what are we going to mine for? And should we really be digging in another world?