Transmat World: Why Asteroid Mining May First Take Place on the Moon

Lunar outpost - courtesy Wikipedia

The Moon has been bombarded since the beginning of our Solar System with asteroids, meteors, and comet dust. The Moon has almost no erosion. The Moon has not had plate tectonics for billions of years. It has been without vulcanism for around three billion years. Why isn’t someone searching for that material on the Moon? , Helium 3 from the solar wind and water also fall onto the Moon’s surface from space.They are the bonus prize. Some would say they, especially the He3, are the main event and why the Chinese now have a craft on the far side of the Moon. Altogether, the Moon gets hit by about 2800 kg of meteor material per day.

Chinese rover on far side of Moon.

The Moon is 4.5 billion years old. If we assume it has been collecting material at this rate on average for just the last 3 billion years (from the last period of volcanism) that’s 3 trillion kilotons of meteoritic and asteroid material that is distributed about the Moon’s surface. Unlike Earth, it is still there, undisturbed by weather and oxidation. That is the equivalent of 430 asteroids the size of asteroid 1996 FG3 which is 1.2 kilometers in diameter.

It did not all come down in chunks the size of 1996 FG3, however. It came down in millions of pieces of millions of different sizes from millions of different sources. It is spread over 38 million square kilometers of lunar landscape just waiting for the cleverness of humans to find a way to economically find and collect it.

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Let me just state this here for the record. The first asteroid mining will take place on the Moon. Some smart company, using NASA’s Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway as intended will launch satellites around the Moon to detect various metals or minute fluctuations in gravitational fields to locate deposits of metal on the Moon. Surface-based drones will collect and return this material to a base camp where it will be consolidated and launched back into space and, eventually, back to Earth. If Opportunity can last 15 years, someone can come up with rugged, long-lasting prospector mule drones for the Moon.

Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway near the Moon - courtesy NASA

Unfortunately, NASA’s Moon rover, Resource Prospector, was cancelled last year by the current administration. NASA intends for private enterprise to step in and take over the development of hardware. Moon Express is one company offering up designs for vehicles to do the job.

Just yesterday, Valentines Day, NASA announced they wanted the hardware to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2028, and they want commercial enterprise to do it. “This time, when we go to the moon, we’re actually going to stay,” says NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. An article from GeekWire about this subject gave the impression NASA was anxious to get this done.

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This would seem a reasonable attitude by NASA, given China’s recent return to the Moon and the almost certainty the Chinese are after the biggest energy trove of all time in the form of He3 on the lunar surface. Maybe the U.S. figures two can play that game. In reality, it’s several countries wanting to get to the Moon now. Russia, India, Europe, and Israel all want a piece of the action.

3D printed wall using Moon regolith type material

NASA named nine companies that will be participants in the program known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS. These companies are Astrobotic Technology, Deep Space Systems, Draper, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin Space, Masten Space Systems, Moon Express, and Orbit Beyond. They will compete for $2.6 billion dollars in contracts over the next ten years. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the program would concentrate on scientific payloads, “We believe there is a lot of amazing science that we can do on the surface of the Moon.”

3D printer slated for use in space.

With all of this activity ramping up, the first deposit of valuable metal to be found on the Moon may likely be by accident as rovers ply the surface looking for H3 and water. Once discovered, there will be a scramble by corporations and government entities to duplicate this success over and over. Base camps will spring up to support this effort. Base camps will become spaceports, and the Moon will soon become the major jump-off for exploring our Solar System to the limits of human ingenuity and fortitude. And the patter of little feet on regolith derived concrete floors in a vacuum sealed lunar dwelling will herald the true dawn of humanity as a spacefaring civilization.