Sunday was quiet in Esch-sur-Alzette. As I walked from the city centre and back onto the hiking path I noticed people were sweating from the summer heat. The clock had not yet struck 9am and the thermometers were already at 25°C.
I was about to cross the southwestern lands from the capital of the Terre-Rouge and head for Belval, before going into the forests to Oberkorn, Differdange, Pétange and Bascharage - crossing the country’s largest clearings. I just happened to do it on the hottest day of the year.
In this part of the country the views are open, there are big dirt fields, and very little shade. "Have you seen that parts of the landscape are almost like a lunar landscape?" Xiaochen Zhang, a Chinese-Canadian scientist I met in Belval, asked me.
Zhang is a space geologist at ESRIC - European Space Resources Innovation Center at the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology (LIST). She arrived six months ago to support the research in the field of space resources and understand more about how we can create a future in-space economy.
"The big three are the United States, China and Luxembourg - which somewhat bridges the gap between the other two,” she said. “It is one of the main markets for the space industry and that is why I came here. There are 80 companies in the area working in the Grand Duchy, with projects in robotics, satellites and mineral extraction that may have great viability and a huge future. Seen from space, this small country is very big. It's huge, really."
Our conversation continued in 31°C heat and steep climbs. As we were approaching Oberkorn the forest provided shade.
"There has been a revolution in recent years, with the opening of the Luxembourg Space Agency in 2018 and ESRIC in 2020. We are developing projects to study the lunar soil to be able to separate oxygen and create breathable environments and even water, which would ultimately allow colonisation of the moon and other celestial bodies," Zhang said.
"We are looking at ways to use lunar geology to build airstrips, laboratories, and houses. We might even make hotels one day, ultimately to foster a space tourism market," she added.
The hike continued, forcing us to climb over fallen trees, and we ended up next to an abandoned quarry.
"It's funny how this idea of mining is born in the middle of a land that has always been mining. Mind you, I think that going into space doesn't mean that we shouldn't look at our planet’s problems. But now we are understanding how we can send machinery to meteorites, extract nickel, gold and platinum from them, and it is happening from here, from this country that many people outside Europe have never heard of. It's extraordinary, isn't it."