[CommiesOut]

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[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Bump and a bookmark.

[Rushian]

Even if you did it on the dark side of the Moon, I'll guarantee you the e-wakkos would be all over it. And that would be no more silly than their concern about ANWR.

[nunya bidness]

I'm a rockthrower from way back.

[JoeSchem]

The real key to lunar mining, Taylor said, was to reduce the cost of sending a craft into space so that its operators could afford to have a vehicle which went up partially empty into space and came back partially empty.

Alternatively, we could send a robotically-operated minifactory to the Moon which would manufacture projectile shell casings for shipping metals back to Earth. The shells would be fired from the Moon, using oxygen compression. Such pressurized guns have been tested on Earth with velocities that equal lunar escape velocity.

This was the technology I used in my story, Incident at Clavius Gulch.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

To back up their claims, they cite a famous sale of Russian lunar samples held at a New York Sotheby's auction in 1993, where a pebble of moon rock weighing less than one carat fetched an astounding $442,000, or $2,200 a milligram. According to Applied Space Resources (ASR), a moon mission costing less than $100 million could return a quantity of lunar material with enough demand in the marketplace to make the return on investment attractive to financial backers.

But if they returned a large quantity, it wouldn't be so rare and valuable, would it?

[Stingray]

"The treaty stipulated that any wealth obtained from the moon by any space-faring nation was to be distributed to all the people of the world."

The "have-nots" trying to run the lives of the "haves" again.

[Clara Lou]

Question: If tons and tons and tons of minerals and ore were mined from the moon and removed to Earth, wouldn't it alter the moon's orbit over time?

[Cuttnhorse]

For some reason this story is based on the eroneous assumption that the minerals listed are in short supply on earth. Not so...just look at commodity prices for copper, tungsten, gold, etc. There are PLENTY of reserves right here on earth of every commodity listed.
If anyone thinks this is a worthy investment, please call me first...I have some diamond claims in southern Nevada that we should talk about!!

[Cuttnhorse]

For some reason this story is based on the eroneous assumption that the minerals listed are in short supply on earth. Not so...just look at commodity prices for copper, tungsten, gold, etc. There are PLENTY of reserves right here on earth of every commodity listed.
If anyone thinks this is a worthy investment, please call me first...I have some diamond claims in southern Nevada that we should talk about!!

[Brett66]

Mining for the sake of mining is a losing proposition. Mining for the sake of building hotels, large solar cell farms etc. would work. It's a catch-22. We won't build those things on the moon because there is no demand for it. There is no demand for it because there's noone there that needs it. There's noone there because there's no hotels etc. on the surface.

One way to break this catch-22 is to start up a lunar hotel. The only way a lunar hotel will be profitable will be with much cheaper launch costs. The Russians already launch payloads into orbit for about $600/lb. This is sufficient to enable construction of a hotel and maintain a potential profit.

Because of various laws, we'll have to wait until a private American or European launch company can offer launch costs in this range. I think there will be several companies that will achieve sub-$1000/lb. launch costs within 5 years.

NASA has no interest in such activities so they will not be involved, but that's a good thing. We can't afford a $100 billion lunar base that would keep out civilians. You build a colony/city with NON astronauts.