European Space Agency reveals plan that could spark a new space race - Mine the Moon

a reply to: rickymouse

Apparently there’s plans to do it all on the moon.
By creating a slurry on the moon using the lunar dust and rock, they wouldn’t even have to bring the cement.
Crush, mix, cast. Place

a reply to: dollukka

The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies hasn't been ratified and is therefore not binding upon the United States, Russia, China, Japan or the majority of the members states of the European Space Agency. So it doesn't apply to any of the major players actually pursuing space exploitation, and is thus irrelevant.

The latest moon landing and rover deployment by the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, whose goals explicitly include exploitation of lunar resources, comes five years after the previous one. The next phase of the program focuses on returning lunar samples to Earth, with a robotic research station to follow at the Moon's south pole.

ESA plans aren't sparking anything. The race to exploit lunar resources is already well underway, and at this point, China is in the lead.

That doesn't mean it will necessarily stay in the lead, of course, but the race is definitely on.

a reply to: oldcarpy

There is nothing on the Moon that we don't have on Earth (apart from Helium 3) anyway so it's not as if anyone will be quarrying millions of tons of rock and shipping it off to earth.

We have not even scratched a surface in proving that. It is concentration that is the key to valuable minerals and metals.
Look at a few of the largest craters on Earth, Vredfort, Sudbury and Popigai. The sources for much of the worlds Gold, Silver
and Diamonds. Imagine what might be found in Tycho and Copernicus craters?

In fact, it seems so obvious that these and other large moon craters would have been the first places that any lunar mission would have landed first!

a reply to: oldcarpy

What I am saying is, that we started doing crazy things to our planet, without having developed our technology or intellect far enough to understand the ramifications of our actions. By the time we did understand them to a degree, the systems we had erected around our destruction of our environment were so much stronger than the people of the world, in terms of our lack of ability to curtail them, that we already stand to live with the consequences of those actions, consequences that are probably unavoidable now.

The last thing we want to do, is to perform a similar thing on the moon, and although there is less to "damage" arguably, on the moon, we MUST have the foresight to counter ANY and EVERY negative effect we have on the moon, and by extension, our own world, as a result of this next expansion.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Not much to disagree with there.

I expect that mining asteroids will be a big thing in the future.

a reply to: oldcarpy

Now, handled correctly, I cannot see any kind of a problem with that at all.

Its interesting to consider the fate of the living beings that were on the world during the various enormous impacts in the lifetime of the planet we are standing on, to wonder what would have happened if those impacts and subsequent events, including apocalyptic volcanic eruptions and the like, had not have happened. How far would the dinosaurs and the rest of the species living prior to those momentous events, have fared had they not been wiped out by these things and their knock on effects.

However, we, the human race, certainly do not want to be wiped out by asteroids, and mining them would seem on the face of things to be killing two very scary birds, with one stone. The first bird, would be resource depletion here on the planet Earth, in times to come, whether short or long term, and the second would be the threat that free floating space rocks pose to the species we are a part of. That is something that I think could be very significantly pushed toward, without any particular risks in either the long or short term, to the planet we live on or the species we are a part of, and I am behind any effort to make asteroid mining happen, one hundred percent. Anything that reduces the amount of our own planets resources and structural cohesion that we chip away at, is a plus as far as I am concerned, especially if there are no foreseeable long term risks associated therewith.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Hey - if an asteroid doesn't get us the next equivalent of Spanish Flu or whatever will. That was 1918 - 500 million infected, @ 50 million killed.

With the massive increase in global travel since then, not good.

Back on topic, we really need a Space Elevator.