The Prospects For Lunar Mining

MarkWhittington writes "With the discovery of vast amounts of water on the Moon, some frozen in the shadows of craters at the Lunar poles and some chemically bonded with the regolith, interest in lunar mining has arisen among commercial space entrepreneurs. Paul Spudis, a lunar geologist, has suggested a plan to return to the Moon, which features, among other things, robotic resource extraction and the deployment of space-based fuel depots using lunar water even before the first human explorers return to the lunar surface. But Mike Wall, writing in Space.com, suggests that there are a number of legal as well as technical issues involved in setting up lunar mining operations."

Comments

Re:Regolith?

[Anonymous Coward]

Regolith is the loose rock and dust that covers most of the moon's surface

There is no known material worth the expense of mining it on the moon, but I suspect companies such as Weyland-Yutani may find it a worth while exercise for research purposes.

Re:So what is there of value to mine?

[amanicdroid]

FTFA: "helium 2 and rare Earth elements"

woo..
gonna need some specifics before I get behind this project.

Re:Energy requirements?

[aquila.solo]

No. The "dark side" of the moon always faces away from the earth. It doesn't always face away from the sun. It is fully illuminated during the "new moon" phase.

HTH. HAND.

Re:Regolith?

[Crudely_Indecent]

For others who didn't know about that discovery:

http://www.space.com/6904-uranium-moon.html