To be held on Friday 8 April 2016 at the Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. Organised by Prof. Ian Crawford (Birkbeck College London), Dr Martin Elvis (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and Dr James Carpenter (European Space Agency). Contact: i.crawford@bbk.ac.uk

To-date, all human economic activity has depended on the material and energy resources of a single planet, and it has long been recognized that developments in space exploration could in principle open our closed planetary economy to external resources of energy and raw materials. Recently, there has been renewed interest in these possibilities, with several private companies established with the stated aim of exploiting extraterrestrial resources. Space science and exploration are among the potential beneficiaries of space resources because they may permit the construction and operation of scientific facilities in space that would be unaffordable if all the required material and energy resources had to be lifted out of Earth's gravity. Examples may include the next generation of large space telescopes, sample return missions to the outer Solar System, and human research stations on the Moon and Mars. This meeting will explore these issues, and will provide an opportunity for space scientists and emerging space industrialists to discuss mutually advantageous possibilities.