How To Avoid a Scramble For the Moon and Its Resources

MarkWhittington writes "With the Chang'e 3 and its rover Jade Rabbit safely ensconced on the lunar surface, the question arises: is it time to start dividing up the moon and its resources? It may well be an issue by the middle of the current century. With China expressing interest in exploiting lunar resources and a number of private companies, such Moon Express, working for the same goal, a mechanism for who gets what is something that needs looking into. Moon Daily quotes a Russian official as suggesting that it can all be done in a civilized manner, through international agreements. On the other hand, law professor and purveyor of Instapundit Glenn Reynolds suggests that China might spark a moon race by having a private company claim at least parts of the moon. 'International cooperation will certainly rule supreme while there are no economic interests, while it is not clear where commercial profits lie. Scientists can't help communicating with each other and sharing ideas.'"

Comments

Re:nothing of any us to us on moon

[the_other_chewey]

What are the resources there?

1. Silicon

2nd most abundant element in Earth's crust

2. Oxygen

Most abundant element in Earth's crust

3. Aluminum

3rd most abundant element in Earth's crust

4. Iron

4th most abundant element in Earth's crust

5. Magnesium

In the top 10 of the most abundant elements in Earth's crust.

6. Water ice (in craters near the poles)

Oceans

7. Helium 3

10s of ppb only, and just on the surface (solar wind doesn't really penetrate).
Also, it's useless as an energy source compared to everything else:
If we are at a technological level capable of building a fusion plant for He3,
we can build one for hydrogen for much less. And thus, again, Oceans.

8. Titanium

In the top 10 of the most abundant elements in Earth's crust.

9. Lots of trace minerals

In traces very similar to those on Earth, given the common history.

10. Solar energy

Deserts.


So unless the idea is to produce stuff that goes further out and not back to Earth,
mining the Moon is just an insanely difficult way to get resources we have plenty
of down here.

Admittedly, building an actual production economy for space exploration would be
a great idea, and I'm all for it. Waiting for humanity to get the technical capability (to say
nothing of the will) to do so might still take a while though. We're far from being there.