20 QUESTIONS ON LUNAR RESOURCES

20 QUESTIONS ON LUNAR RESOURCES

1 What is the Moon Made of?
Tests on Apollo Moon Rock Samples showed that they contain high percentages of Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, Aluminum, Titanium, Magnesium and Calcium with lesser amounts of many other elements.

2 The Moon has no water, so what will settlers drink, use for washing, and to grow food?
Water is 89% Oxygen by weight. As we can produce plenty of that from the soil, the trick will be the other 11%, Hydrogen. We can harvest Hydrogen from the loose top soil also, by heating it in the same operation we use to extract Nitrogen. In time, we’ll be able to harvest water-ice reserves discovered by the Lunar Prospector probe in 1998 in craters near both the North and South poles always in cold shadows.

3 The Moon’s Gravity is only 1/6 as strong as Earth’s. Won’t that cause health problems?
Astronauts staying in orbit many months at a time experience a loss of bone Calcium and muscle mass. But that is in “Zero-G”. There is every reason to expect that in the Moon’s 1/6 gravity, any initial deterioration will stabilize at an acceptable level for long term, even lifelong stays. Mass and momentum will be the same as on earth, so isometric exercises will be more important than lifting, and musculature will be a little different. Children (and flowers) may grow lithe and tall. Settlers will invent graceful new dances and interesting sports to suit the low gravity.

4 What sort of useful building products could we make from these few elements?
Eventually, we should be able to make high-quality metal alloys such bas steel, aluminum, titanium, and magnesium alloys. This would require an elaborate industrial complex, on the Moon or in Earth Orbit. In the short run, it would relatively easy to make useful sintered iron products, glass, fiberglass, and a glass-glass composite with the strength of steel. We can also make some ceramics and even concrete.

5 What things in particular would these cheaper Lunar resources allow us to build in space?
Much larger Space Stations than we can now afford to haul up from Earth module by module is one example. Only with the cheaper raw materials could we ever afford to build orbiting factories to take advantage of vacuum and zero gravity to make useful things that can’t be made on Earth’s surface, or Hotels and Resort complexes for tourists to enjoy the spectacular views below, or the large orbiting Solar Power Satellites to provide Earth with ample clean power.

6 Given Earth’s two most pressing problems, our deteriorating environment and Third World poverty, how can we justify the high-up front costs of tapping Lunar Resources?

Many things are contributing to our deteriorating environment; but the number one villain is electrical power generation from coal and oil-burning plants that fill the air with acid rain and greenhouse gasses that could eventually destroy the climate. Even if the developing countries switched to all nuclear-wind-geothermal-hydroelectric sources. People in underdeveloped nations will have no way to catch up to our standard of living except by burning even more fossil fuels than we do today. Space-based power generation is ultra clean and there is no end to the amount available where the Sun provides it free full-time. Without such a solution, Earth’s environment and the World’s poor will share in the same death sentence.

7 Besides these more abundant elements, does the Moon have any truly strategic resources?

A big surprise was that Apollo Moon dust samples contain 600 times as much of a rare form of Helium, Helium-3, as is found on Earth. This endowment is native to the moon, and is only to be found in the upper few feet of the loose powdery soil. It was apparently deposited there by the wind of particles streaming from the Sun’s hot atmosphere since the beginning of the Solar System. If ever we succeed in engineering workable fusion power plants, HE-3 would be the ideal fuel as burning it produces no radioactive particles, not even neutrons, just charged particles that can produce electricity directly. There is enough fuel in the Moon’s surface blanket to provide Earth with all the power we want for the next thousand years or more.

8 What chance is there of unhappy side-effects of generating our electrical power in space?

Power from orbiting Solar Power Satellites (SPS) will have to be beamed down to Earth either by Laser or by radio waves in microwave range (not the same as those in your microwave oven as those would be absorbed by water vapor in the atmosphere!) Tests to date deliberately using insect and bird species that might be most vulnerable to such waves have flagged no ill effects. There are fail-safe ways of controlling the beam and keeping it on target to ground receiving stations.

But some economic dislocation for the coal miners and petroleum workers is the price we’ll have to pay for either a solar satellite grid or for a helium-3 fusion system. Yet putting these systems in place could employ even more people than those put out of work, by greatly increasing available power at low prices. A clean Earth and a chance for a decent standard of living for all could be the reward.

9 Where on the moon is this wealth to be found and just how would we go about extracting it?

On Earth, slow geological processes have worked to concentrate much of the mineral wealth in scattered veins and lodes. On the Moon this did not happen and these minerals lie in similar concentrations. There will be no race to stake out rich claims. Eons of meteoric bombardment have “gardened“ the Moon’s surface into a “pre-mined” loose rock powder (Regolith) 5 to 50 feet deep. All we need is here, and Nature has already done the dirty work for us.

10 Won’t mining scar the Moon with open pits and unsightly piles of unwanted tailings debris?

As we have just noted, the mineral wealth of the Moon is lying loose on the surface. In essence, we need to simply rake the top few feet of loose Regolith to harvest what we need. We will want to do this in generally flat areas, going around craters of any size larger than a few yards across. So there will be neither deep mines nor pits, and the minerals not needed will be left in place. A visitor would have to come very close to tell that anything had been done while those on Earth will see no difference at all in the Moon’s appearance. Earth mining companies have shown no interest in Moon-mining proposals, but the prospects have enthused others who know the Moon has to offer to help solve problems on Earth.

11 How large a crew would be needed on the Moon?

Simple resource recovery operations could begin with a dozen people. Liquid Oxygen to use for air, to burn in fuel cells to make water, and for rocket fuel would be the first product. With a few more people, we could begin making simple sintered iron products and glass-glass composites with much of the apparatus automated or remote operated.

Each step sets the stage for others, and as markets grow, there could someday be many thousands of miners and other workers and support personnel on the Moon. To house them, processing building materials will be a priority. These will become an export item also.

12 How could people live is such a barren place?

The first shelters will be compact space station type habitat modules brought from Earth, covered with a few feet of soil for protection from the elements (radiation, heat, cold solar flares, etc.) But fairly soon the crews should be able to move into larger structures built with raw materials on hand. These spacious quarters could be flooded with piped in sunlight, and filled with plants to keep the air clean and fresh and to provide fresh fruit and vegetables.

13 Would miners sign up for short tours of duty? Or go to stay and bring their families along?

Certainly the first volunteers will only stay for a few months at a time. But as the base grows, a point will be reached where it is cheaper to provide facilities for permanent settlers rather than keep shuttling personnel back and forth from Earth. As soon as possible, it will be helpful for some of the crew to volunteer as trial settlers, even going so far as to raise children. For until we see how native born children grow up, we cannot be absolutely sure that genuine settlement can be maintained indefinitely.

14 What long-term health consequences will there be for permanent pioneers and their children?

We can expect some loss of muscle tone and mass in adjusting to the lower gravity, but this should level off at an acceptable level. The longer we put off letting volunteers to stay long term, the longer we’ll have to wait to find out if this expectation is correct.

15 Wouldn’t a settlement of any real size need a continuous infusion of very costly imports?

Lunar soil in general has very little hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. Once we tap the polar ice fields, these elements should be in sufficient supply to serve a population of as many thousands as the diversifying economy can handle. By resourceful use of elements that are economically abundant, imports can be kept to light weight complex sophisticated items and capitol equipment for manufacturing.

16 To build a healthy, diversified economy, what else could the colony export, other than rocket fuel, building materials, and fusion fuel?

Almost anything the settlers could make for themselves to avoid unnecessary imports, should find a ready export market in Earth orbiting installations, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

17 Even if all of this development does not scar the Moon, won’t it cause pollution there?

Any settlement would need to operate as a “closed biosphere” recycling its air, water, and biomass. As the pioneers will live “downstream” and “downwind from themselves,” they will have a strong do-or-die incentive to keep their little oasis of life fresh and clean. The Moon has no atmosphere, ground-water, or ecology of its own to pollute.

18 What about the suggestion that the Moon might be used as a dump for Earth’s problem waste?

Even if waste disposal authorities on Earth become desperate enough to pay to launch some wastes into space, it will be cheaper to let the Solar Wind slowly blow them out of the Solar System altogether than to land them on the Moon. If, however, in the Moon’s totally safe, sterile vacuum and biological isolation, it proves possible to “mine” such wastes for elements rare on the Moon, the settlers may welcome them.

19 How far off in the future is all of this and how much scarce money will we have to invest?

NASA has no plans to return to the Moon, per orders from Congress not to bring up the subject. Genuine settlement will need technologies that NASA has put off developing: Closed biospheres and manufacturing under Lunar conditions, for example. Some of these technologies could be developed by entrepreneurs now, simply for any profitable terrestrial applications. This “spin-up” approach would put such technologies “on-the-shelf” ready to use when needed, most of the cost already taken care of. A Lunar settlement could eventually be a very profitable undertaking, given Earth’s growing thirst for electrical power. In the end it will happen when business and industry are ready. Private investment is the key.

NOTE: While it was true at the time these 20 questions on Lunar resources were drafted, NASA has announced that they were going back to the Moon and would be putting a station at the Lunar South Pole.

20 How inevitable is such an Earth-Moon economy?

Using present proven off-the-shelf hardware such as Spacelab modules for Lunar shelters, and existing vehicles, a start could be made within a decade. It will take decades for the whole scheme to unfold, however.


Courtesy of the Lunar Reclamation Society