NASA is now accepting applications from companies that want to mine the moon

zatara
reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation

 

Why would anybody need NASA for a contract to mine the Moon?

Well, it isn't going to be me or you mining the moon, it's going to be huge companies with massive amounts of assets. If they are an American company, or company in a country under the "protection" of America, they could possibly find back channel ways of getting to the moon, but their company here on Earth will have to deal with the consequences of terrestrial governments, something they wouldn't want to happen.

Maybe through China or Russia, but that presents a problem too. If they completely ignore any American mining claims on the moon, they would be shooting themselves in the foot. Because when Chinese and Russian companies start mining the moon, what defense/protection are they expecting if they already say nobody can claim mining rights on the moon?

In other words, the only people who COULD call us out on mining the moon would likely want to mine it themselves, so they aren't going to complain. Going in second has its advantages or seeing where others have failed and seeing what works.

The best bet for any other countries and/or companies would bet to sit back, let NASA and companies blaze the lunar trail, and then come in and set up shop once you've figured it all out.

zatara

It is inevitable that we as a people of the Earth will mine objects like the Moon. The logistics will be something to think about...figuring out what the most efficient way is to get what we want. It is a bit like how to get to Mars and start permanent basis overthere.

Maybe we will need to make the machines for the mining on the moon with materials from the Moon itself. In time there will be maybe a way to transfer the energy from these mined materials in a wave form to the Earth instead of a heavy bucket load.

Off topic but...

I don't know...those words above are just some quick thoughts. Anyways...space is the answer for a healthy economy and to battle unemployment. It is the healthy alternative to the weapon industry.

Agree, most of the metals would be needed for building the base infrastructure on the moon. The same on Mars first we send in the mining platforms, next the town planers & builders, (be they remotely or robotic) finally the people have a place to call home.

May they live long and prosper.

AnAbsoluteCreation

NASA is now working with private companies to take the first steps in exploring the moon for valuable resources like helium 3 and rare earth metals.

Initial proposals are due tomorrow for the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown program (CATALYST). One or more private companies will win a contract to build prospecting robots, the first step toward mining the moon.

The contract will be a "no funds exchanged" Space Agreement Act, which means the government will not be directly funding the effort, but will receive NASA support. Final proposals are due on March 17th, 2014. NASA has not said when it will announce the winner.

NASA leading the push to offer contracts to mine the moon?

AAC

NASA is now accepting applications from companies that want to mine the moon

According to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty of the United Nations, countries are prohibited from laying claim to the moon. The possibility of lunar mining and the emergence of private space companies has triggered a debate over lunar property rights, however.

This has interesting written all over it.

AAC

It's reading crap like this that makes me question why destiny ever saw fit to put me on this spinning marble in the first place. I can not for the life of me understand why "man" thinks he can just take over any planet or celestial body he wants once he's destroyed the one he's currently living on simply so he can continue doing what has just befouled his prior residence.

DexteramLucifer
I can not for the life of me understand why "man" thinks he can just take over any planet or celestial body he wants once he's destroyed the one he's currently living on simply so he can continue doing what has just befouled his prior residence.

There are untold billions of planets and moons out there. Anything we do to this planet or any other one is almost the definition of insignificant.

The bigger question I have is why go all the way to the Moon for stuff when we've barely touched 1/4 of the surface of the Earth?

reply to post by DexteramLucifer

It's what we do.
But I don't think the Moon is a particularly choice vacation spot (or that He3 mining would destroy it for that matter).
In any case this actually doesn't seem to have much to do with mining. Unless you're going to use the stuff you mine on the Moon instead of Earth.

NASA's new Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative calls for proposals from the U.S. private sector that would lead to one or more no-funds exchanged Space Act Agreements (SAA). The purpose of these SAAs would be to encourage the development of robotic lunar landers that can be integrated with U.S. commercial launch capabilities to deliver small and medium class payloads to the lunar surface.

www.nasa.gov...

No mining equipment. No way of bringing stuff back.

Blue Shift

DexteramLucifer
I can not for the life of me understand why "man" thinks he can just take over any planet or celestial body he wants once he's destroyed the one he's currently living on simply so he can continue doing what has just befouled his prior residence.

There are untold billions of planets and moons out there. Anything we do to this planet or any other one is almost the definition of insignificant.

The bigger question I have is why go all the way to the Moon for stuff when we've barely touched 1/4 of the surface of the Earth?

But that's just it. Man does what he does without giving a second thought for the outcome of what he has done or is about to do and if he has it almost always "well those consequences would have no effect for x-amount of years". I think we should act and do as if the consequences were immediate.

Phage
reply to post by DexteramLucifer

 

It's what we do.
But I don't think the Moon is a particularly choice vacation spot (or that He3 mining would destroy it for that matter).
In any case this actually doesn't seem to have much to do with mining. Unless you're going to use the stuff you mine on the Moon instead of Earth.

NASA's new Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative calls for proposals from the U.S. private sector that would lead to one or more no-funds exchanged Space Act Agreements (SAA). The purpose of these SAAs would be to encourage the development of robotic lunar landers that can be integrated with U.S. commercial launch capabilities to deliver small and medium class payloads to the lunar surface.

www.nasa.gov...

No mining equipment. No way of bringing stuff back.

edit on 2/10/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Maybe it's just me being thickheaded but I can't fathom any reason why man needs to go meddling around on the moon or any other planet/celestial body. Haven't we done enough damage to our own?

DexteramLucifer


But that's just it. Man does what he does without giving a second thought for the outcome of what he has done or is about to do and if he has it almost always "well those consequences would have no effect for x-amount of years". I think we should act and do as if the consequences were immediate.

So what? Seriously?

I don't mean that in a confrontational way, I mean it completely honestly.

Why shouldn't humans spread around the galaxy consuming and destroying? Why is that wrong? Who decided that? Who decided consuming and destroying is bad? Who decided that what we do is considering destruction? The universe is full of destruction the likes of which man could never hope to rival, and that is seen as good and natural, part of the cycle.

Yet when man destroys to create, it's seen as bad and proof of how stupid and backwards humans are.

You are judging humans on a universal level, but using terrestrial human criteria for the judging. Maybe one day we will discover a large society of intergalactic beings who will laugh in our faces, wondering why we think it's bad to consume and destroy for our purposes?

Humanity's actions follow entropy. Things continually degrade, forever. Nothing can ultimately be created or destroyed, only transformed, who decided (or gave you authority) to decide that our preferred transformations are somehow negative?

Things we do as a species are either wrong because they hurt our ability to survive, or because they are ultimately universally wrong. There is no such thing as ultimate and universally wrong, so the only "bad" thing we are doing is damaging our ability to continue on as a species. And if you hate humans as much as it seems you should be happy about that.

It's the height of arrogance to think our ideas of destruction, our ideas of what's wrong and right are going to be shared by the universe. You see a healthy forest and you see beauty, you see good. You see a nuclear power plant and you see death, darkness, negative human aspects. Why? Because arrogance dictates that since you personally find a forest pretty, it's inherently better than the nuclear power plant. It isn't. It simply exists as it is like everything else.

A star blows up and destroys an entire solar system, we are amazed and in wonder of nature's beauty.

A human strips a planet/moon of resources and that's seen as a horrible thing.

All the "damage" humanity is doing to the Earth doesn't matter. The earth will be swallowed up by the sun eventually. It's ALL going away, why is it wrong for us to strip the planet, but not for the sun?

Once again, unfettered arrogance. Humanity has this ideal they are somehow different, above, outside of nature. We aren't. We ARE nature. Us stripping a planet is no different than a sun blowing it up. It's nature taking it's course, acting as nature does.

DexteramLucifer
But that's just it. Man does what he does without giving a second thought for the outcome of what he has done or is about to do and if he has it almost always "well those consequences would have no effect for x-amount of years". I think we should act and do as if the consequences were immediate.

But they're not. As much as we may have "ruined the planet," it's still plush enough to support 7 billion of us and then some. And besides, who's gonna stop us? We're the only game in town.

Blue Shift

DexteramLucifer
But that's just it. Man does what he does without giving a second thought for the outcome of what he has done or is about to do and if he has it almost always "well those consequences would have no effect for x-amount of years". I think we should act and do as if the consequences were immediate.

But they're not. As much as we may have "ruined the planet," it's still plush enough to support 7 billion of us and then some. And besides, who's gonna stop us? We're the only game in town.

Not to mention, the sun is going to destroy the Earth anyway.

Humans can blink from existence, and this planet is still doomed from something far worse than anything man could conjure.

Just arrogance, thinking we are so special our actions carry different weight than the actions of the universe. Sun destroys Earth, that's natural and OK. Humans give the Earth a few cuts and scrapes and we are a scourge.

reply to post by DexteramLucifer

Maybe it's just me being thickheaded but I can't fathom any reason why man needs to go meddling around on the moon or any other planet/celestial body. Haven't we done enough damage to our own?

Quite a lot, yes. But I think we do learn from our mistakes, albeit slowly.

Your statement is a bit ironic though. With all the damage we've done, we've still thrived as a species. The thing is there are things out there that can (and inevitably will) eliminate what beauty there is remaining in the world along with us. Things we have no control over.

The only real chance we have for long term survival is by getting our eggs out of this one basket and to learn as much as we can about what lies beyond it. You probably don't care but there are many who do. It will take a lot of small steps for us to be able to do so.

undo

hubby researched lunar mining and other space mining and found that there are several international agreements on who actually owns space. according to the agreements, no single country was allowed to own any part of any planet or moon. however, the idea of asteroid mining was not really discussed if i recall. been awhile since i read it. from this i gleaned that unless the member nations who had signed the agreements, changed their minds and agreed to it, no one would be mining it any time soon.

This sounds like certain "contracts" or "agreements" with native peoples...

All well and good and noble until it actually becomes feasible and money becomes involved....

Phage
The only real chance we have for long term survival is by getting our eggs out of this one basket and to learn as much as we can about what lies beyond it. You probably don't care but there are many who do. It will take a lot of small steps for us to be able to do so.

I think we're pretty much doomed, anyway. The numbers are just not in our favor. We might be able to cobble together some smart robots and send them off into the universe before we expire, though. Big and little self-replicating, self-correcting, self-programming things to sail off and latch onto anything out there with enough resources to build more of themselves. We might have a shot at that.

reply to post by James1982


To elaborate on your point somewhat:

Look at a tree...do you see a thing of beauty?

Look at a work of art, constructed from that tree. Is it less beautiful because the tree was sacrificed to create it?

Where would man be today if he had never burnt wood? What if he had never built a hut, never built a bridge, never built walls?

reply to post by Blue Shift

In the very long term that's true.
I'm thinking more in terms of thousands or even millions of years though, not billions.

Phage
reply to post by DexteramLucifer

 

Maybe it's just me being thickheaded but I can't fathom any reason why man needs to go meddling around on the moon or any other planet/celestial body. Haven't we done enough damage to our own?

Quite a lot, yes. But I think we do learn from our mistakes, albeit slowly.

Your statement is a bit ironic though. With all the damage we've done, we've still thrived as a species. The thing is there are things out there that can (and inevitably will) eliminate what beauty there is remaining in the world along with us. Things we have no control over.

The only real chance we have for long term survival is by getting our eggs out of this one basket and to learn as much as we can about what lies beyond it. You probably don't care but there are many who do. It will take a lot of small steps for us to be able to do so.

edit on 2/10/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

I actually do care about learning of what lies both within and beyond our boundaries, I guess I just wish man would tread softly as he does so. No need in muddying the waters if you're going to have to drink from them if you know what I mean.

pillock
reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation

 

Why does NASA think they own the moon ??

They don't.

why do you think they do??

reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation


Amazed by the sheer arrogance of NASA that they think this is their moon to own, dish out and mine at all.



Ro

Blue Shift
And besides, who's gonna stop us? We're the only game in town.

famous last words.


2nd.

Rosha
reply to post by AnAbsoluteCreation

 

Amazed by the sheer arrogance of NASA that they think this is their moon to own, dish out and mine at all.

Amazed by the sheer arrogance of someone condemning NASA for something they don't claim and never did - you should try comprehending the topic, not just shouting off at the headlines!