Part 3/13:
By scanning the cosmos, one finds that vast resources—energy, minerals, and other materials—are abundantly available beyond Earth, especially in space. Our galaxy alone hosts hundreds of billions of stars, along with asteroids and comets containing trillions of dollars worth of rare minerals. Over the long term, it could be more practical for intelligent machines (and humans, too) to seek to harness these extraterrestrial resources rather than remain confined on a resource-scarce Earth, especially considering how costly and dangerous space exploration is.