I think the moon would not be of great interest for mining, but could be used as a base to get to asteroids with more valuable metals and ores that could be mined.
Just 2 cents worth.
But hey Russia (or China) "If you want to do mining of the moon... you do you."
I recall there being a few materials that would be worth mining... but If you change the mass of the moon...
I dunno, I feel like that's not a great idea. Maybe it would cause a gradual change over a looong time, but our orbit is relatively stable very little "drift"... it would suck if changing the mass of the moon caused something to happen, like altering our earth/sun orbit or Earth/moon orbit...
The moon, she's a spinnin'!
I know the mass would only change a wee bit... but frakkin' the moon... we should focus on the resources found on Earth (both in the ground and from the freaking SUN)…
I recall there being a few materials that would be worth mining... but If you change the mass of the moon...
I dunno, I feel like that's not a great idea. Maybe it would cause a gradual change over a looong time, but our orbit is relatively stable very little "drift"... it would suck if changing the mass of the moon caused something to happen, like altering our earth/sun orbit or Earth/moon orbit...
The moon, she's a spinnin'!
I know the mass would only change a wee bit... but frakkin' the moon... we should focus on the resources found on Earth (both in the ground and from the freaking SUN)…
If 1 metric ton of material was completely removed from the moon every day, it would take 220 million years to remove 1% of the moons total mass, which is not enough to effect it or is.
Or not...
[This message has been edited by Boondawg (edited 10-09-2020).]
I heard of mining the Moon for Helium-3, since it's more abundant there than on Earth. As I understand it, Helium-3 would make nuclear fusion more attainable.
But water? I'm assuming it'll be used on-site (to make liquid hydrogen and oxygen), rather than bringing it to Earth.
[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 10-09-2020).]
Originally posted by Boondawg: If 1 metric ton of material was completely removed from the moon every day, it would take 220 million years to remove 1% of the moons total mass, which is not enough to effect it or is.
If I did the math right, then after 220 million years the Moon will have drifted about 5500 miles from Earth, due to natural causes. Also note that we've already dropped several tons of stuff on the Moon. So we'll be starting off ahead of the curve.
[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 10-10-2020).]
Then you'll go nuts over the movie! It's on Netflix. The silliest part is Sarah Palin as POTUS, but...
OMG, I want to save anyone the pain of watching the version of this movie which is available on Netflix. I had planned to watch the movie that was associated with the trailer that I had linked to in my previous post. I thought I was going to be watching the original 2012 movie on Netflix when instead it was the 2019 sequel... and it was freakin' awful. The original may be better, but I'm not all that keen now to bother finding out.
OMG, I want to save anyone the pain of watching the version of this movie which is available on Netflix. I had planned to watch the movie that was associated with the trailer that I had linked to in my previous post. I thought I was going to be watching the original 2012 movie on Netflix when instead it was the 2019 sequel... and it was freakin' awful. The original may be better, but I'm not all that keen now to bother finding out.
Is this the point where I say "Told you so ?" and direct you to Red vs Dead...
Because you know....
[This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 10-10-2020).]
We should probably leave the moon alone. Over the long term it would likely be a bad idea. The moon is already slowly drifting away from us.. Start removing large amounts of mass from it over time through mining would likely speed up that process, and it wouldn't take removing as much mass as you might think to make it happen..
So with our luck the moon would drift away rapidly, or just end up breaking apart as we hollow it out and Earth gravity continues to tug on it with the same force.
Then we will end up in an post apocalypse wasteland, rules by robots, monsters and wizards!
I mean, cmon, has nobody ever seen Thundarr the Barbarian?
[This message has been edited by Jonesy (edited 10-10-2020).]
CNN, CNET, CBS News and other media outlets are newly abuzz about 16 Psyche, describing it as a "rare metallic asteroid" worth $10,000 quadrillion.
quote
$10,000,000,000,000,000,000.
IF all of its metals could be mined for their worth, based on today's markets for iron, nickel, gold and platinum.
That's about 70 thousand times more than the $142 trillion value of the global economy for 2019, according to Forbes contributor Jamie Carter.
Barron's Allen Root, however, throws cold water on the idea that such a comparison makes any sense whatsoever, in economic terms, even imagining that it is already possible to mine this super-sized asteroid for all of its worth.
16 Psyche is getting news page real estate because of a paper that was just published in the Planetary Science Journal, based on a UV-reflectance study of the asteroid using the Hubble Space Telescope.
16 Psyche is thought to be the residual core of a "wannabe planet" that never completed the process of acquiring the full size and structure of a rocky planet like Earth, Mars or Venus. It's shaped like a potato that extends 173 miles across, or 144 miles, or 114 miles, depending on what angle is used to line it up. It orbits the Sun in the Main Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars, about 230 million miles distant from Earth.
If things go according to plan, 16 Psyche will soon be getting the NASA space probe treatment; i.e.:
quote
This intriguing asteroid is now the primary target of the Psyche mission. Targeted to launch in August of 2022, the Psyche spacecraft would arrive at the asteroid in early 2026, following a Mars gravity assist in 2023. Over 21 months in orbit, the spacecraft will map and study 16 Psyche’s properties using a multispectral imager, a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, a magnetometer, and a radio instrument (for gravity measurement). The mission’s goal is, among other things, to determine whether Psyche is indeed the core of a planet-size object.
"The Most Valuable Thing In the Solar System Is a $700 Quintillion Asteroid. Except It Isn’t [worth $700 Quintillion.]" Al (Allen) Root for Barron's; November 13, 2019. https://www.barrons.com/art...drillion-51573644602
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 11-01-2020).]
I had planned to watch the movie that was associated with the trailer that I had linked to in my previous post. I thought I was going to be watching 
The original may be better, but I'm not all that keen now to bother finding out.
