Space and Space and discoveries question.

Question

Ok... Here is another “What If” question. Say NASA found really rare or valuable metals on the Moon or Mars. How would they go about claiming it? (Assuming that the material is well worth getting a hold of) I mean, would they just be able to claim the entire planet? Just the immediate area?

Answer 1

By the 1968 Treaty, no nation or entity can 'claim' an astronomical body... the Moon, Mars, the moons of Jupiter, etc - they are regarded much the same as Antarctica is by all nations who signed the treaty.

A base on the moon or Mars would be able to be there legally, but I would bet an international consortium of nations would be set in place to monitor the type and amount of rare materials that are mined.  While the material would belong to the nation that mined it, there'd be no stopping another nation from setting up a similar mine 100 feet away.  

Answer 2

The Moon's materials are there for the taking.  But let's they they found huge amounts of platinum just laying around on the surface.  Well, currently, it costs much more than $20,000 per pound to bring it back from the Moon.  You have to get fuel down to the Moon that will lift your payload back.  And platinum isn't going for even $20,000 per pound.

Now, it has been proposed that we mine the Moon for helium 3.  This isn't easy to obtain in quantity on Earth.  The idea is that when we have fusion reactors, we will be able to use helium 3 from the Moon as fuel.  However, we don't have fusion reactors.  And if we did, it might be cheaper to ship the reactor to the Moon, and generate power there, which could be beamed back to Earth.

What could be worth huge amounts of money from the Moon?  Geology.  The Moon retains a record of events that happened in the solar system over the last 4.5 billion years.  The Earth's record has largely been erased. Can you sell it on eBay?  Well, maybe not.