Moon Mining

[DrCR]

Anyone else notice this recently? Example:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/10/moon-mining-nasa-search/

I would have presumed there exists more efficient ways of mining whatever material of interest than going to the moon for it.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

50 years and it will be like a swiss cheese

 

[DrCR]

50 years and it will be like a swiss cheese

Whatever can be mined there cannot be more efficiently mined on earth?

 

[Shihab]

Someone probably thought that, at some point, cheating gravity (or time, depending on your view of the subject) away from the core would be cheaper than moving several tens of hundreds of kilometers -in depth- off the planet's matter (while not screwing up the ecosystem in the process).

Not mentioning that the lower you go, the hotter and more pressured (pressuring?) it gets. I wonder if there is a depth at which protection investment wouldn't be much different than what you'd need for outer space.

Also, if we were to ever think of building anything big outside Earth, it would make more sense to get materials from somewhere with less gravitational pull and atmosphere..

 

[Vayra86]

Mooning?

 

[dorsetknob]

1st thing to be mined will be Ice.............everything else will depend on finding Ice first

 

[Bones]

Someone probably thought that, at some point, cheating gravity (or time, depending on your view of the subject) away from the core would be cheaper than moving several tens of hundreds of kilometers -in depth- off the planet's matter (while not screwing up the ecosystem in the process).

Not mentioning that the lower you go, the hotter and more pressured (pressuring?) it gets. I wonder if there is a depth at which protection investment wouldn't be much different than what you'd need for outer space.

Also, if we were to ever think of building anything big outside Earth, it would make more sense to get materials from somewhere with less gravitational pull and atmosphere..

I can see it now......
You drill the charge holes, fill them with blasting agent, set the ignition charges in place, tie/link in and blow them puppies.

Then a literal fountain of material just comes up and out of the blast crater and because of low gravity and no atmosphere, it just all goes into space...... Right towards earth.

Gotta time those blasts just right to catch it all.
No haul trucks/shuttles required to get it out of the hole.

 

[kapone32]

The Moon has lots of certain elements that are very beneficial for energy production among other things. The moon is a stepping stone though to give us Helium 3 so that we can get to the Asteroid belt so we can get to the real Gems of the solar system.

 

[bonehead123]

And so it begins....

The commercialization/commoditization of space/heavenly bodies ....

Hopefully the folks involved in this situation have considered that once this starts, it will be next to impossible to stop. And also that if you overmine the moon (which WILL happen, given our insaitiable thrist for mineral-inspired wealth) and it crumbles/collapses/explodes, the effects on the Earth will be extremely horrific, and also irreversable...

I sincerely hope to be gone by the time this starts, so I don't have witness the destruction & mayhem that follows ......

 

[TheLostSwede]

The Moon has lots of certain elements that are very beneficial for energy production among other things. The moon is a stepping stone though to give us Helium 3 so that we can get to the Asteroid belt so we can get to the real Gems of the solar system.

Diamonds you mean?

 

[bug]

Mining should be easy-peasy. Transportation is the real issue.
Short of platinum, gold, diamonds and uranium, not much else would cover the costs.

 

[kapone32]

Diamonds you mean?

Helium 3

 

[R-T-B]

Whatever can be mined there cannot be more efficiently mined on earth?

Depends on the composition. If it's rich in something the earth is not, the logistics may be worth it.

Frankly, since it's just a piece of old earth knocked off by an asteroid, I don't see it being worth it.

 

[kapone32]

And so it begins....

The commercialization/commoditization of space/heavenly bodies ....

Hopefully the folks involved in this situation have considered that once this starts, it will be next to impossible to stop. And also that if you overmine the moon (which WILL happen, given our insaitiable thrist for mineral-inspired wealth) and it crumbles/collapses/explodes, the effects on the Earth will be extremely horrific, and also irreversable...

I sincerely hope to be gone by the time this starts, so I don't have witness the destruction & mayhem that follows ......

It's ok we'll just pull some asteroids from the belt to replace it.........

 

[R-T-B]

Helium 3

It may be useful for fusion, but we should probably figure that out first.

And so it begins....

The commercialization/commoditization of space/heavenly bodies ....

Hopefully the folks involved in this situation have considered that once this starts, it will be next to impossible to stop. And also that if you overmine the moon (which WILL happen, given our insaitiable thrist for mineral-inspired wealth) and it crumbles/collapses/explodes, the effects on the Earth will be extremely horrific, and also irreversable...

I sincerely hope to be gone by the time this starts, so I don't have witness the destruction & mayhem that follows ......

Frankly, no amount of mining is ever going to take a meaningful amount of the moon away to make a difference. Of all the things to worry about, that's not one, because most of the moon will be waste, like all mining. We didn't mine the earth away, did we? No, there are dirst piles everywhere we mined. We don't just vaporize the matter.

 

[kapone32]

Depends on the composition. If it's rich in something the earth is not, the logistics may be worth it.

Frankly, since it's just a piece of old earth knocked off by an asteroid, I don't see it being worth it.

No atmosphere means that some of whatever has traveled in space is on the moon. It also means that all of the craters have elements frozen in them that have not travelled far from impact surface. There could be a lottery of things we do not yet fully understand or appreciate.

 

[R-T-B]

No atmosphere means that some of whatever has traveled in space is on the moon. It also means that all of the craters have elements frozen in them that have not travelled far from impact surface. There could be a lottery of things we do not yet fully understand or appreciate.

Could be. Could also be just a thin surface layer not worth our time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm curious, but I wouldn't invest in this personally.

 

[kapone32]

It may be useful for fusion, but we should probably figure that out first.

We just need enough of it. We would need to build a moon base though. In many ways a Moon base makes the most sense for travelling the solar system.

 

[R-T-B]

We just need enough of it.

Is that really all there is to it? A working lab example might be a start IMO, or have we gotten that already? May be out of date here.

In many ways a Moon base makes the most sense for travelling the solar system.

This I agree on, but I certainly wouldn't want to be one of the pioneers.

 

[Shihab]

You drill the charge holes, fill them with blasting agent, set the ignition charges in place, tie/link in and blow them puppies.

Kinetic bombardment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hopefully the folks involved in this situation have considered that once this starts, it will be next to impossible to stop. And also that if you overmine the moon (which WILL happen, given our insaitiable thrist for mineral-inspired wealth) and it crumbles/collapses/explodes, the effects on the Earth will be extremely horrific, and also irreversable...

Even if we assumed that the entire moon is made of useful minerals, at 74 quintillion tons? That doesn't sound like something we'd manage ship over any significant portion of before someone figures out how to propel farther into that void.

For ball-parking: A quick search tells me that the most mined mineral -other than coal- is iron, at ~3.7 Billion tonnes, annually. Assuming the moon is a big ball of iron floating around, even chipping off 0.01% of that mass would take us ~2 million years. Double the output and you'd still be in the million years range.

 

[kapone32]

Is that really all there is to it? A working lab example might be a start IMO, or have we gotten that already? May be out of date here.

We just have to put it our solid fuel rockets

This I agree on, but I certainly wouldn't want to be one of the pioneers.

Humans are engineered to live on Earth. If we seriously think for 1 minute that Space is our inheritance we are misguided as a people. They would have to send robots to do most of anything anyway.

 

[R-T-B]

Humans are engineered to live on Earth. If we seriously think for 1 minute that Space is our inheritance we are misguided as a people. They would have to send robots to do most of anything anyway.

I mean, longterm speaking, one day the Sun will eat us if we don't leave.

But that's so far in the future as to be irrelevant to almost everyone, so I get you. I mean humans have trouble adapting to day/night cycle at stations in Antartica, so yeah...

 

[DrCR]

I can see it now......
You drill the charge holes, fill them with blasting agent, set the ignition charges in place, tie/link in and blow them puppies.
Then a literal fountain of material just comes up and out of the blast crater and because of low gravity and no atmosphere, it just all goes into space...... Right towards earth.

That sounds like a plot from a movie where a paradoxically advanced luddite group wants to destroy all satellites and make subsequent launches infeasable do to the resulting micro asteroid cloud around the earth. Or maybe make the context a dystopian world where space has been completely militarized but there's a few insiders who want to tear it all down. Hey, more plot than Ad Astra. This sounds like Netflix Original material.

 

[Bones]

That sounds like a plot from a movie where a paradoxically advanced luddite group wants to destroy all satellites and make subsequent launches infeasable do to the resulting micro asteroid cloud around the earth. Or maybe make the context a dystopian world where space has been completely militarized but there's a few insiders who want to tear it all down. Hey, more plot than Ad Astra. This sounds like Netflix Original material.

Therefore I claim all movie rights.

Seriously, I've worked in mining before and there is alot to it, more than you'd think TBH.
The cost of just hauling it out from the hole/pit is considerable when you start talking about the equipment needed, maintenance, manpower needed, hours and so on. I used to drive these where I was working:

It's a VERY dangerous job, don't let any preconceived notions deceive you.
The trucks themselves are easy to drive once you get used to them, it's the enviroment it operates in that will get you everytime and there is alot of stuff that can do just that before you even know it.
By the time you do know, chances are it's already too late and I speak from experience - Had too many close calls of my own to know otherwise.

 

[1freedude]

I recommend watching the movie "Moon"

I want to weld in space and on the moon. No atmosphere, different gravity, space dust to contaminate the weld... Only a welder would appreciate it.

@Bones how often did the equipment need welding? Ive never worked in a mine, I've been aerospace my whole career

My kids say I can go weld in space, but wife says "No!"