The Moon Is Bursting With Precious Titanium

Discovery News ^ | Wed Oct 12, 2011 01:16 PM ET | By Irene Klotz

[Red Badger]

The discovery was made thanks to a camera aboard the US Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which swept the surface of the Moon, scrutinising it in seven different light wavelengths. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

[Darteaus94025]

This is old news. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3uch-1Ouag

[Genoa]

Oil is what we really need.

[resistance]

I repeat myself, and then I repeat myself...

[Truth29]

And the Russians and the Chinese thank the US for the information.

[Vaquero]

He3 may be more valuable in the long run...

Mine the Moon.

[G Larry]

At half a $BILLION per trip, how much do you have to bring back to get the price below $50,000/oz.?

[GonzoGOP]

Prized on Earth for its strength, ability to resist corrosion and light weight, titanium on the moon, which is mostly found in mineral called ilmenite, could be mined and processed for future use.

Non starter. The energy needed to break the chemical bonds on FeTiO3 are enormous. And the cost of bringing it back to Earth are prohibitive. World demand was only 335,000 tonnes of TiO2, representing about 2.4 million tonnes of ilmenite, per year. There are vast deposits in China, South Africa and especially Norway and Finland. No reason to ship from the moon at $1,000,000 a pound when go to Norway and bring it in by the bulk freighter load at pennies a ton.

[eclecticEel]

Of far more value than the titanium itself is the He3; which is present everywhere on the moon, but is most highly concentrated around titanium. Future prices for He3 could be as high as $1.5m per kilogram - with titanium being just a useful byproduct.

[Vaquero]

Oil is what we really need.

Helium-3 is a very rare gas with the potential to fuel clean nuclear fusion power plants. However, one of the problems is that the nearest supply of helium-3 is on the Moon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94rEqHP9dOQ

[chuckles]

I hate to always be the cynic, but you can't help but believe NASA is trying to find some funding? Science isn't cutting it, so let's try greed!

I'm surprised it wasn't "unobtainium."

[GonzoGOP]

He3 may be more valuable in the long run

BINGO. You mine the moon for stuff you can't get at home. It will almost always be cheaper to get it locally than to ship it from the moon.

Of course the opposite is also true. If you were building a shelter and tools for the He3 miners on the moon it would be a lot cheaper to get the materials there then to bring them out of the gravity well from Earth.

But if you are going for a permanent settlement Mars is a better choice. It may not have as much titanium, but it has iron and more importantly lots of O2, H2O, and CO2. It also has higher gravity and an atmosphere that while thin is enough to block out solar flares.

[SunTzuWu]

...how much do you have to bring back...

You don't bring it back. It's value is in not having to lift it out of Earth's gravity well. If you do want it back on Earth, you don't put it in the cabin with returning crew. You just drop it. With an ablative coating or formed into a lifting body shape, you just send it on its way and gravity does the rest.

[COBOL2Java]

At half a $BILLION per trip, how much do you have to bring back to get the price below $50,000/oz.?

That's easy! Just put leftists in charge of doing the math, and tell them the Moon people will vote Democrat.

[DBrow]

Apollo made the same discovery, using xray fluorescence.

Whether XRF or hyperspectral mapping, these only measure the surfaces of things and not the depths, and have no physical “grond truth” to determine scale factors or accuracy.

I think a core-drilling robot mission would settle the matter.

As for theusefulness of 18% ilmenite, we’d need to develop a vacuum process to reduce the oxides to metals and separate out the iron, then develop a vacuum process to fabricate Ti parts on the moon. Oh and no water can be used, in fact no aqueous processes at all can be used.

We found just putting footprints there and taking pictures to be pretty challenging.

[onedoug]

If soetoro has his way, we´ll never go back to the Moon.

[magslinger]

When you are mining on the moon, always be sure you know exactly where the laser beam is, Manny.

[Dead Corpse]

Everything is impossible until someone does it for the first time.

[traderrob6]

[EQAndyBuzz]

How convenient. Obama kills space program, titanium found on moon.

Go figure.