Slashdot Mirror
Billionaire Teams Up With NASA To Mine the Moon
schwit1 writes: Moon Express, a Mountain View, California-based company that's aiming to send the first commercial robotic spacecraft to the moon next year, just took another step closer toward that lofty goal. Earlier this year, it became the first company to successfully test a prototype of a lunar lander at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The success of this test—and a series of others that will take place later this year—paves the way for Moon Express to send its lander to the moon in 2016. Moon Express conducted its tests with the support of NASA engineers, who are sharing with the company their deep well of lunar know-how. The NASA lunar initiative—known as Catalyst—is designed to spur new commercial U.S. capabilities to reach the moon and tap into its considerable resources.
Have you seen how much rock we have down here already?
This may not turn out very well.
On Moon there is gas called helium 3, which 25 tons can provide power for whole USA for a year. On earth there is only about 10 kg of it. Who controls the moon, controls the future.
If you think the Keystone pipeline is Bad, consider a few thousand tons of some mined material from the moon coming into the atmosphere at ~17,000 mph.
(sarcasm)What could go wrong?(/sarcasm)
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
I'm no Seleneologist nor am I a Geologist, but what exactly is up there that we can't get down here in larger quantities for much less money? No sarcasm intended, I'm honestly curious..
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
the moon loses too much mass from mining and the earth gains that mass from being the recipient of those mined resources?
Is it "first come, first to profit"?
For the foreseeable future, I'd think not....more like 3rd to merge assets of 4 failed startups might profit.
A quick google returned stuff like "Moon rocks have 10x more titanium than Earth rocks". The moon having 10% titanium compared to Earths 1% is only one example of high rare mineral concentrations. An no environment issues to worry about.
so much more useful? Or maybe even the lagrange points?
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
I thought at one point in time, it was agreed on that no single nation "owned" the moon. Therefore, what happens if someone goes up there for a commercial project and sells material gathered there? Is it "first come, first to profit"?
The Outer Space Treaty
Article II: "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."
Article I says, in part, "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law". I would look to maritime law regarding resources in international waters as a basis for how lunar resources might be handled.
Article VI says, in part, "States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty." Since this is a US company they will need authorization from and supervision by the federal government.
"what's up there? This is stupid!"
Seriously, turn in your geek cards, every fucking one of you. I don't care what's up there, if someone wants to put a fucking space colony on the moon, FUCKING AWESOME. We're not going to get off this rock until people start doing shit, even if that shit fails and blows a lot of money, because we can learn from those failures and keep trying.
Seriously, it's like I just stumbled into high school again. "Who needs math, math is stupid! Why do you read science fiction, that's stupid!" Fuck off, some of us have dreams.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Actually, no. It works just fine, you can hot-forge it much like iron (really, I've done it, when its glowing it moves under a hammer much like iron does), machining it requires tungsten carbide tooling but most people use that anyway, and you don't have to worry about heat-treatment, the stuff will be just as hard as mild steel (RC52ish) no matter what you do to it. The real cost is creation: converting titianium dioxide to metallic titanium on a commercial basis is complex, takes a lot of energy, and results in a material that doesn't melt until it gets over 3000F, but must be alloyed (melted and mixed with other elements) to be usable. The cost of the raw material is almost irrelevant -- TiO2 is used in virtually every modern paint (to the extent that it's a standard test for forgery detection on art, unless you're compounding your own paint from linseed oil and powdered minerals, it's probably got titanium dioxide in it).