The moon may appear to be no more than a big piece of rock but it is a rock believed to hold immense amounts of resources, making lunar mining highly attractive.
One of the companies interested in tapping into the moon's resources is Shackleton Energy. After extracting tons of water ice from the lunar poles, the company aims to produce rocket fuel, putting up fuel stations along the Earth's orbit. By addressing limitations on fuel that spacecraft can bring, Shackleton Energy endeavors to open up space like never before, much like how gold paved opportunities for the West.
Can't Shackleton just use water from Earth?
The company argued that overall it will actually be around 20 times cheaper to bring water from the moon to Earth's orbit than it is to deliver water from within the planet and into space. With calculations in place, Shackleton plans to have a team mining the moon within eight years. From there, it is projected to generate revenues after four years and break even within 12.
Aside from water that can be turned into rocket fuel, the moon also holds vast stores of rare earth elements. China is particularly interested in this potential as the country is a top producer of electronics, and electronics require the use of rare earth elements, which happen to be dwindling at the moment. If it taps into the moon's reserves of rare earth elements, China will have addressed its concerns over procuring raw materials for electronics.
Before anyone can get their hands on lunar resources, however, the moon has to be explored fully. Only when Shackleton is sure of just how much water ice it will have access to and only when China knows where exactly to drill to get to rare earth elements will the possibilities of lunar mining truly unfold.
For now, scientists and interest parties are working on getting to the moon first and developing necessary technology for exploration and ultimately mining.
According to Angel Abbud-Madrid from the Colorado School of Mines' Center for Space Resources, exploring for resources on the moon should more or less be based off the same methods humans have used for exploring the Earth.
NASA also has the Resource Prospector Mission lined up to launch in 2018. The concept mission will verify the possibility of extracting resources from the moon, which would not only benefit NASA but the private sector as well.
