Will it be possible to mine for valuable materials on the Moon?

[Kayla45]

Earth will eventually run dry of rare material to build with, could we find destroyed astroids on the Moon and harvest materials from it with robots?

Definitely possible

Likely possible but not for many years

Not possible / No point in doing so

A total of 28 votes were cast: 3 girls and 25 guys. See detailed results

[MrOracle]

The moon isn't actually very rich in the kinds of minerals that we would need. Even if it was, it would, with near-future tech, still be far too expensive, but since it isn't, there's no point.

It seems likely that there could be lots of valuable minerals in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter (which might have at one time been a planet that got pulled apart), or even on Mars itself, but we're probably a century or more away from technology that might make that practical.

[AviatorTom]

It will be possible to mine on the Moon, but the Moon doesn't have the same interior structure as the Earth, so the quantity and kinds of minerals that can be mined will be much less than what's on Earth. A better source of these would be Mars, which has a geological structure more similar to Earth's.

[Anonymous]

Of course. The question is will it ever be economically feasible to do it. Putting a person in space is a 10th of what it used to cost. So the cost has come down but it is still frightfully expensive. In the early days of NASA this was acceptable because it was mostly done in the name of military defense. Hell, the only reason we're going back to the moon is because China is. One of the best reasons to put a base on the moon is it contains enough elemental rocket fuel they say to last 300 years. And at 1/6 the earth's gravity escape velocity is much lower.

But honestly we're just talking staging areas. There are certainly other places in the universe with much richer materials. Asteroid 16 psyche (I didn't name it🤣) made up entirely of metals is estimated to contain more gold than has ever Ben mined here on earth.

But now where talking between Mars and Jupiter. And we're not even to the moon yet, let alone Mars, let alone halfway to Jupiter. As I said this'll come down to making it economically feasible. And the entrepreneur that makes this possible, (my bets on Elon Musk) will become the world's first trillionaire, and could usher in a new Era of humanity.

Of course there's a lot of problems to work out.

[BCA6010]

Nothing that can be feasibly extracted from the moon wouldn't be easier to get on Earth even in the distant future. The only reason we'd actually want or need to do it, would be to support some sort of industry or infrastructure in orbit rather than back on Earth.

[abc3643]

I don't think it will be relevant in the long run except for the people living on the moon.

This is because eventually controlled nuclear fusion will be able to be used to create the necessary elements to make any mineral desired. That won't be in my lifetime but neither will harvesting minerals on the moon.

[TheSpaceGnome]

Volcanism constantly produces more surface rare earth metals.
Nuclear fusion plants also produce small amounts.
Molecular assemblers would build them subatomically.
Asteroids have rare earths and destroying threatening ones is a priority.
I doubt we will mine the moon anytime soon.

[SnowedIn]

What @AviatorTom said plus the issue of getting stuff back to earth and the cost of the empty transport back to the moon or mars

[ohsheeT]

Will you please send this question to the 570 something elected officials it all hold a seat in the United States and ask each one who dares to stand up to be great today. To have a better tomorrow

[NamerOfStars]

Well, theoretically, but we don't need to wait for things to collapse here (and it won't be iron or steel that we run out of, either). The Moon's a great source of, for example, helium-3.

[jahaims]

It will probably never be cost effective to do so. Having a technology where you can break down anything into raw elements then reforming them is more likely

[AviatorTom]

@jahaims Star Trek Replicator... here we come.

[jahaims]

I've never seen the show. I'll trust you on that one, lol.

[FreyaRed]

With our current space drive technology it's completely uneconomic. It will be more economic to collect resources in 5 km ocean deeps.

[Drumlin2001]

It's possible but need to bring costs down to make it viable. Would have to be high value material and a cheap delivery system for returning to earth

[ProbablyClueless]

Space mining is going to be exorbitantly expensive, and most of what we'll get up there is iron.

[RealMarek]

Barring some huge step-change in technology, if it is, it means costs on earth will be so high that there will be mass poverty.

[Huntingnfishin]

The movies that have mining on other planets always end happily ever after

[Staximus]

It's possible in the future but there's no point. I'm pretty sure we will be stupid enough to cause our own extinction or near extinction sooner or later.

[exitseven]

I think this is why all these rich guys want to explore space.

[genericname85]

definitely "possible" in theory but definitely not economically viable xD

[Alex-Snow]

I think it will happen but hopefully not for many years

[AngryCarl2]

Theoretically possible, but too expensive to be feasible.

[LiamJHayden]

Possible, but cost prohibitive at current tech levels.

[Anonymous]

Pointless elites will run a mass cull on the population before sinking trillions if not quadrillions into space mining

[NathanDavis]

just wait till it is profitable...

[RavVid]

Unlikely to be economic.