As far as I’m concerned there are three major steps involved in getting a private group onto the Moon:
Know-how and money are the toughest parts. After decades of planetary exploration we still see headlines like “ESA Lander Lost” or “NASA Probe Misses Destination”.
Even then, we hear more often than not of landers making it these days. Titan, Mars, Venus, the Moon, etc... we’ve been to them all.
By far the largest problem is the money.
Considering how easily government forces part for money interests, if you have money, you can typically find a way to work with governmental regulations (note how many billionaires were stopped by the government from starting a spaceship company: none).
Well now Moon Express has the money, know-how and governmental support.
Now planning to launch in 2017, Moon Express is set to become the first private group to land on the Moon - they’ll also be the furthest any private group has ever gone from Earth.
They’ll pave the way for the mining of resources on the Moon.
This is something I know from past posts to have a level of controversy to it but I remain optimistic about this subject:
Firstly, it’s largely unavoidable. We regularly consume more resources than our planet can sustainably provide. A lot of this consumption however isn’t in things we can simply cut back on:
Take Helium-3 for example. It’s used a lot in the medical industry (which results in lots of lives saved), cryogenics, science research and has potential applications in energy production through nuclear fusion.
There’s likely more of it on the Moon then there is on Earth. This is because the Sun’s solar wind blows it out into space from inside the star where it’s forged. The Moon captures it and has been doing so for billions of years.
In fact there’s enough helium-3 on the Moon to provide energy to the planet for tens of thousands of years. Let’s be honest with ourselves though and acknowledge that actually stripping the surface of the Moon of helium-3 for energy on Earth is a little less likely than simply investing in renewable resources on Earth. It could still be of immense use as an energy resource for various endeavors (say space-based fuel sources).
Regulations must be set and standards strictly adhered to however. We can’t realistically just let private groups act without oversight. For conservation and scientific purposes, pollution of extraterrestrial environments is to be avoided at all costs.
Who owns the Moon? Can anyone able to raise the funds to build a robot and launch be allowed to claim as much lunar land as they want? That seems ridiculous to me.
What about invasive bacteria? If we’re not careful we could infect a planetary body with some subtle form of life, throwing an unintentional wrench into astrobiology research. Imagine if we discover some life on the Moon or another place only to realize after halting all operations that it was carried on a robot from Earth?
While I’m on the subject of polluting extraterrestrial bodies, I should bring attention to the fact that a lot of the mining on extraterrestrial places like the Moon will be of rare earth minerals. This includes things that we need for televisions, computers, batteries, cancer treatment, integrated circuits, silicon chips, lasers (including x-rays), catalytic converters, streetlights... I think my point’s made. Modern society essentially needs rare earth elements in order to exist.
They’re also extremely bad for the environment.
What if we could mine and refine them on the Moon however? It’s thought there could be high concentrations of various rare earth elements up there and by opening up lunar vistas to entrepreneurial exploration could have positive impacts on the Earth.
The answer, I think is somewhere in the middle. I don’t think it’s possible to stop human expansion into space. Before we do so however, we should probably think carefully about setting limits to our explorational entities. In this way we can preserve the beauty and integrity of the universe around us while making use of its resources to support the people of Earth in a fair manner.
We should consider the environmental, social and economic benefits of mining extraterrestrial bodies (like rare earth minerals, helium-3 etc) while considering the tendency for governments to favor monied-interests.
What are your thoughts on mining the Moon and other places in the Solar System?
(Image credit: ESA/Foster + Partners)
