NASA opposes lithium mining at an ancient Nevada lakebed site used to calibrate satellites, as federal officials have blocked mining in the heart of Nevada’s Railroad Valley.
The agency says the site is indispensable for calibrating the razor-sharp measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting overhead.
At NASA’s request, the Bureau of Land Management has declared that 36 square miles of the roughly 90-square-mile lakebed are no longer available for exploration and mining.
Railroad Valley is large, flat, barren, uniform in color, generally free of clouds, and has remained unchanged over the past three decades, making it the best site in the United States for satellite calibration, according to NASA….