The Economic Development of the Moon

MarkWhittington writes "Andrew Smith, the author of Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, recently published a polemic in the British newspaper The Guardian, entitled Plundering the Moon, that argued against the economic development of the Moon. Apparently the idea of mining Helium 3, an isotope found on the Moon but not on the Earth (at least in nature) disturbs Mr. Smith from an environmentalist standpoint. An examination of the issue makes one wonder why."

Comments

Wonder and amazement

[SIGALRM]

From TFA[1]:

The prospect of either Helium 3 fueled fusion or space based solar power or a combination of both replacing fossil fuels should excite people who express concern for the Earth's environment

It's a big, dead rock in space, boys. I doubt that the ridiculous cost of space travel will ever fall enough to make it worthwhile, but in case that happens, the lunar environmentalists will be there to file EPA complaints against anyone trying to make the moon economically productive.

If you looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, would you be filled with a sense of wonder and pride about the ingenuity and courage of your fellow man, or with forbidding and dread that the moon was being raped?

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Rycross]

Everything is non-renewable given a long enough time frame. Entropy is a bitch.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[jtroutman]

If you looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, would you be filled with a sense of wonder and pride about the ingenuity and courage of your fellow man, or with forbidding and dread that the moon was being raped?

If I looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, I'd be filled with a sense of wonder at how far telescope technology had come. Even the most powerful scopes we have here on Earth can't pick out the man-made stuff already on the moon.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[sdnick]

Apparently the idea of mining Helium 3, an isotope found on the Moon but not on the Earth (at least in nature) disturbs Mr. Smith from an environmentalist standpoint.

There is no legitimate environmentalist standpoint worth discussing about the Moon. There is no life on the Moon. There is no environment for environmentalists to worry about. If they're worried about the faint possibility that human mining will somehow create some crater on the moon visible from the Earth, they can just pretend an asteroid made it, same as the millions of other craters littering the moon's surface. Or just perform the mining on the horribly scarred side of the Moon facing away from the Earth and dare anyone to claim that man's activities make it look worse.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Kjella]

There's a huge difference between sources of energy where the future energy potential is affected by our current usage and not. A windmill on a windy day might not be renewed by wind the next day, but the point is that whether we captured that energy or not makes no difference on future winds. That big honking ball of fire called the Sun is like a big campfire - you can warm yourself on it, stay far away from it, put up a solar panel next to it, but in every case the entropy is increased all the same and you're no worse off by taking advantage of it. Compare that to any fossil fuels, fission or fusion then consuming one unit today is one unit less you can use later. The quicker you capture a renewable source the more energy you can harvest from it, the quicker you consume a non-renewable source the faster you'll run out. Something we're learning in oil economics 101 so right about now...

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Smauler]

I personally believe that _anything_ that helps us get off this planet is basically a good thing. I don't just believe this because of the eggs in one basket argument, though that is an important reason for humanity to not just live on Earth. The main argument in my eyes is that the faster we get into space, the faster I (or my son/daughter, or their son/daughter, etc) am going to get a spaceship.

Also, it's a big dead rock in space now. Geologically it's pretty useful. Militarily it's an imperative to control it so that someone else doesn't. It _will_ be of strategic importance in the future.

Mining the moon for minerals is _not_ raping it. Firstly, you're using the word rape badly (rape requires ability to consent, unless you look to some archaic texts). The moon cannot give consent. It's a rock. It cannot be raped. Secondly, why on earth would mining the moon be considered bad in the first place? I mean, as you said, it's just a big old rock.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[jollyreaper]

In other words, in an expanding universe there will always be useful energy sources, by the virtue of it expanding. Until the cosmologists change their theories, I believe what you are saying here was two flaws. First, an endlessly expanding universe means that the clumps of matter will get further and further apart, making the formation of stellar nurseries and new stars from the old material less likely. Second, there's only so much hydrogen in the universe, the same goes for the other elements that undergo fusion in stars. Once those elements have all been used up, there won't be anything left but stellar husks. Likewise, there would only be so much radioactive material left for use in reactors by whatever still lives. If we suppose that some super-science could allow them to split regular atoms for energy, maybe reverse the charges of the subatomic particles and create antimatter, there's still only so much matter left to annihilate. At the end, all will be nothing.

The moon doesn't have an "environment"

[Anonymous Coward]

As I think of it. I think most people think of clean air and water and an ecosystem as an environment. Not a bunch of dead dust in a vacuum.

It seems that many in the "environmental" movement just want nothing to change from its "natural" state, even where there is no nature.

Re:The moon doesn't have an "environment"

[cheebie]

Mass of the Moon: 7.3477×10^22 Kg according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon.

Number of humans currently on earth, massively rounded up: 10^10.

That means that every person on earth would need to use up
seven TRILLION Kg of material to exhaust the moon. Every single
person on earth could grab ten tons of moon-material and have no
appreciable effect on the Moon's mass or it's effect on the tides.

I would say his arguments are specious...

[Nova Express]

...except he didn't make any. His rhetoric boils down to "Environmentalism is good. Looking at the Earth from the Moon helped kickstart environmentalism. Therefore we shouldn't mine the moon." It's a non-sequitur on the order of the Chewbacca Defense. He expects that yelling "Environmentalism!" will cause enough knees to jerk to sway opinion without actually making any arguments. (The sad thing is he may be right, given as how many people treat environmentalism as the new religion. )

Are we to avoid mining the moon because it will harm the native lifeforms? Oh yeah, there aren't any.

Do we need to invent the word "rock-hugger"?

Mr Moonbeam

[Doc Ruby]

Earth's sister has played a role in teaching us to value our environment: how extraordinary to think that the next giant leap for the environmental movement might be a campaign to stop state-sponsored mining companies chomping her up in glorious privacy, a quarter of a million miles from our ravaged home.

He doesn't even give a reason why the environmental movement might want to stop mining the Moon. Maybe he thinks environmentalism is about "pretty Nature, don't hurt her", rather than survival and legacy, but he doesn't even say so.

The only argument his protest makes about mining the Moon is in favor: mining the He-3 would reduce the need to damage the Earth producing energy here.

There might be an argument for science preserving the layout of the Lunar surface for study (eg, the record of impact angles and composition which accumulate billions of years of astrophysical history), but there are technical solutions to that problem, and he doesn't even mention them (except some handwaving about lacking "science" in our goals).

That is the kind of taking "environmentalism's" name in vain that gives legitimate environmentalism a bad name.

Flawed Philosophy

[Toonol]

This is a very harmful idea. A certain amount of environmentalism makes sense; disrupting ecosystems can have harmful repercussions, as can running out of non-renewable resources, etc.

But this idea of preserving the lunar environment seems to me to be based on the idea that objects are better left untouched by humanity. That things should be left untouched, even when it is detrimental to humanity, and no worse than neutral to our ecosystem. This is the type of nonsense that, in the extreme, calls for humanity to let itself go extinct, so as to stop our plundering of the Earth.

Nothing in nature is a value, without something living that gives it that worth.

Simple solution

[rossdee]

Lets mine the far side of the moon, where it won't be seen by those on earth.

Ummmm. o-kay.

[Penguinisto]

This guy proves once and for all that for some elements (not ALL, damnit - just some), it isn't about preserving an ecosystem or conserving species, but about absolute and unrelenting self-hatred for the human species.

Seriously - if it was an argument about contributing to space junk (which can be a hazard to life and limb), or an argument about leaving nascent life (like, say, on Europa or Titan) alone to develop, play... I can grok those arguments.

But the ones presented? ...it's the friggin' Moon! There ain't jack shit for life or biomass there! The only non-commercial value it currently has offhand are the Apollo landing sites (for historical value), and that's it!

IMHO, tear that bastard up if it generates commerce, gives us extra space to live, acts as an astronomical platform, and more importantly, if it takes humankind that much closer to becoming a space-faring race. It's not like we'll reduce its mass enough to really worry about instability (at least not within the next billion years or so), and it's (IMHO) free and open for the taking - belonging (nor should it ever belong) to no earth-bound nation.

/P

What environment?

[SKorvus]

I am an very environmentally-conscious person: walking, biking or transit, no car. Vegan. Local, preferably organic produce. Buy used goods where-ever possible, make do or repair rather than buying. I give that as background, so that it's clear I'm not a typical consumer that thinks my personal desires outweigh impact to the environment.

That that said, I must ask: what environment? The moon is a lifeless, barren hunk of rock. All that has ever occurred in its history, is being pummeled by countless meteors to create a scarred and pulverized surface. There is no environment to protect, only dust and rocks. And as pristine and spartan beauty that may be, there's simply no one to admire it.

Right now, the universe appears devoid of life, except on our tiny blue rock, and it's always in danger of being snuffed out by one stray asteroid. Getting humanity up into space is the best thing we can do, for us, and for the Earth. Where we go, we will bring life with us. We will create new environments on any planets we settle. We are the seed by which Earth's life can spread throughout the galaxy.

Seeing lights glittering back at us from human settlements during a new moon shouldn't be viewed as a desecration of something worth saving, but the growth of new life where there was none before.

You Can't Skip Steps

[BlackGriffen]

In order to get to the point that we could make an entire solar system a boondoggle, we'll have to get out of ours first. That means tapping energy and resources available in the solar system, whether the process is pretty or not.

It's all getting destroyed by the sun in a few billion years, anyway.

Forget environmentalism-what about Int'l Relations

[langelgjm]

I don't think environmentalism is the important issue here. I'm more interested in what impact the economic development of the moon will have on international relations.

Whose moon is it? Of course we have treaties, but when a company starts mining up there, you can bet the profits aren't going to be distributed very widely. Besides the ethical implications of this, how are other states going to react to an American or Chinese company mining a resource that used to be considered off-limits and belonging to all, until it was convenient for that to no longer be the case? Is this just a case of first come, first serve capitalism? There are more things at stake here than just environmentalism.

Re:running the numbers

[Megane]

You could even pack the isotope into large artillery shells and fire them towards Earth.

Which still doesn't solve the main problem. We don't have Helium 3 fusion yet. And we aren't likely to for years. We'll probably have flying cars and Duke Nukem Forever first.

We haven't even gotten the easiest fusion reactions working yet to the point where they will generate a net gain of electricity.

Linked article author is troll...

[Ardeaem]

From the linked article:

One can be forgiven for suspecting that the true motives of environmentalists, whether they oppose mining the Moon, drilling for oil in Alaska, or building wind farms off Nantucket, involve less a love for the environment and more a hostility for technology itself. I believe I speak for most environmentalists on Slashdot (having read the comments about this article) and most environmentalists in general (although I can't be sure) that the implication that environmentalists are just crazy Ludites is crazy in itself. Only someone completely cut off from average, everyday environmentalists would say such a thing. The evidence just on Slashdot is overwhelming; no one would say Slashdotters are hostile towards technology, and many (most?) could be described as environmentalists. This just doesn't square with reality.

Just because one (or a few) environmentalist has a (to us) wacky view, doesn't mean he represents the whole of environmentalists. The only reason you'd imply this is if you had an agenda, and the author of the linked article clearly does.

Re:Linked article author is troll...

[bnenning]

the implication that environmentalists are just crazy Ludites is crazy in itself

Most aren't. But unfortunately the few that are have a lot of influence. Look at the utterly irrational fear of nuclear power they've created, when by any environmental standard it's tremendously better than fossil fuels. For them, the real problem is not environmental damage but our decadent materialist lifestyles, and anything that allows us to continue on that path must be opposed.

Re:Falacy

[femto]

Yeah, but this isn't just any rock. It's the most significant rock in human history, from ancient times to now.

Here is a precedent. There is absolutely no question that Uluru deserves protection. It's protected by a World Heritage Order, which puts it in the global crown jewels. What is it? It's a bloody big rock, just like the moon.

Re:Falacy

[Jerf]

From a purely selfish human point of view there might also come a day when people want to visit that untouched environment.

So, on the one hand, we have the Moon.

• Vast energy and material resources that will allow untold bazillions of years of human lifespan.
• Vast energy and material resources that will allow the flourishing ecosystems that Man will bring with him, totalling even more untold bazillions of years of life. (If we truly colonize the Moon, only the first generation or two will live in the sterile settlements we all imagine.)
• Vast energy and material resources which will allow untold bazillions of years of life for new life forms, those adapted to the lunar environments and those partially or entirely created by Man.
• An insurance policy for intelligent life as we know it (not just Man, you know, not for much longer) against an unfortunate accident on the Earth.
• A launching base for further exploration and the spreading of yet more life, wonderful, vibrant, diverse life across the universe.

Against this, you argue

• Somebody, someday, might want to see the original moon.

How unbelievably fucking selfish to deny the universe life so that you can see a pretty rock. Get a poster or something already. If you try, you might be able to get one with a unicorn on it too; bonus!

Environmentalists ought to be leading the charge for space colonization. Forget saving ecosystems that do pretty well without your help... what about the ecosystems that don't even exist yet? Biodiversity? You ain't seen nothing yet. If you love life, don't stand in front of it.