Do you think we should start mining the moon already?

Question

Do you think we should start mining the moon already?

Answer 1

  It has nothing we need.

Answer 2

For what?

I do support the establishment of a permanent lunar base, which would, at least after a while, involve some amount of mining in order to get both water and building materials (as well as to hollow out space to build underground buildings). However it isn't very realistic to expect such a base to be built before about 2020, and even then the Moon probably wouldn't have any material worth shipping back to Earth just for its own sake; even if the surface were made of solid gold, the cost of sending it back would be more than the cost of mining the gold here on Earth.

Answer 3

if we could, yes definitely.

If you want to build spacecraft, the moon is the perfect place to get materials. It has less gravity than the earth (1/6th), so it takes less fuel to launch. It doesn't have any air, so any iron deposits are bound to be very obvious and simple to refine.

The problem is that we have no idea where to find which resources. On earth, we have an understanding of what we can find in which surroundings, but earth geology doesn't work on the moon. We can't simply looks at the rocks and conclude that there must be [material X] there.

And there's the cost of first setting up a surviving, self sustaining colony on the moon, which is a massive effort.

Of course, even if we were to start today, building the infrastructure to mine to moon would take hundreds of billions of dollars and decades to complete.

Answer 4

To be precise: the Moon has nothing we can use that we can't get far easier and cheaper on Earth.

As for using it as a base for future space operations, that would require considerable infrastructure setup.  While launches from the lunar surface would save fuel, that doesn't matter until we can actually make the fuel on the Moon.  Otherwise trucking it from Earth, landing it on the Moon, and using it there requires more fuel that would be saved.

I think it's clear that commercial uses for the Moon are a long way off.  That doesn't mean it isn't still interesting and bears our attention.

Answer 5

Totally pointless. The immense cost of transportation of the equipment and the mined resources far outweighs the profit that could be made off of the resources.

Answer 6

the orbiting of the moon is what regulates the gravity on earth, messing with the moon is not a good idea.

Answer 7

Helium-3 is the only likely lunar resource worth mining and until we develop fusion there's no reason to exploit it.

Edit: Anything else worth mining on the moon would not be worth transporting back to earth and would only be practical for use off the earth.

Answer 8

No; the moon is not worthy.