just writing a short "essay" about how lunar resource extraction despite the hype isn't profitable (probably). If you have any constructive criticism that would be great as im planing to make a longer actually good version and maybe even a video.
Lunar resource extraction is a bad idea. Why? Well first i am going to start with the example of iron concentration. Lunar regolith has a concentration of iron oxides of ~15% in Fe rich areas and as low as ~5% in Fe poor areas. In pure metal form this comes out as 3.8% iron and 11.6% iron in Fe poor and rich sample respectively as taken from Apollo data. Comparatively high grade iron ore on earth has a concentration of >60% (95% of Australia's exports of iron ore are high grade ore for context) with low grade deposits with concentrations of 20%-40% iron. Additionally, there are many other iron bearing minerals on earth such as basalt which have concentrations of iron oxides between 5% and 14% giving it a similar iron concentration of ~3.8% – ~11.6% depending on the basalt deposits. However these basalt deposits are not used for iron, Why? They have to low of a concentration to be economically viable which is my key argument for why celestial resource extraction will not be profitable. If it is not viable to extract the materials from very iron rich basalt's then why adding in the many, many issues of the moon such as dust, atmosphere, radiation, water and distance from earth (which brings many many extra problems that we dont have to worry about here) is it viable for the moon's low concentration of iron? In my next i would like to present the argument that i think ties it all together. Launch costs and propellant. For moon based resource extraction to become viable (ignoring the fact that it will be cheaper to mine equivalent material on earth) launch costs would have to fall to 10 cents per kilo. This price would be in order to match the cost of transporting a single 6m container with a max carrying capacity of 28 200kg and transport cost of 5000$ which i think is an appropriate metric assuming said container would be full of iron(though prices can go much lower in the example of iron ore ships to achieve the iron ore price of 92$ per tonne).
But i will admit i am using earth launch prices, wouldn't it be cheaper to launch from the moon? I would content NO. Rockets have engines, tanks, payload bays, heat shields but as well all know its just a giant useless tower without the fuel and oxidizer. Now as many have rightly pointed out oxidizer is possible to get on the moon. Lunar regolith is after all mainly composed of metal oxides. So what about fuel? wherein lies the issue, there are little fuel options on the moon. there is water which could be used in a Hydro-LOX engine but we need the water for a lunar base. There is magnesium and aluminum from your oxidizer production but you need a binding agent and solid motors are imprecise. So the only option is transferring propellant from earth which is impractical. Assuming you are using star ship requiring 8-10 launches to refuel a single star ship to get to the moon you are going to need A LOT of star ships to pull it of which is going to be marvelously expensive and impractical.
with these points and hopefully more in the future i rest my case to why lunar resource extraction is unprofitable and probably not worth it (at least not untill we run out of basalt)
I would write more but this is about all i had in the word document all ready planned so my other points will have to wait till a later date. Sorry if the grammar is horrible im not exactly top of my english class. Also i am not an expert just a nerd who enjoys space sh*t like the rest of us. And once again any constructive feedback is welcome
Lunar resource extraction: is it profitable?
byu/Neat-Shelter-2103 inspace
15 Comments
it’s not about “profit”.
>Lunar resource extraction is a bad idea. Why?
[https://www.nasa.gov/mission/in-situ-resource-utilization-isru/](https://www.nasa.gov/mission/in-situ-resource-utilization-isru/)
ISRU is **the harnessing of local natural resources at mission destinations**, instead of taking all needed supplies from Earth, to enhance the capabilities of human exploration.
Nothing begins profitable. If people believe something will be profitable, they will invest however much they need to in order to reach that profit. And when it comes to the beliefs people hold, logic can not be applied.
Also worth mentioning that local resource extraction comes at some sort of cost in terms of CO2 and degradation of the natural environment. Not sure if this is enough to move the needle if quantified in dollar terms but worth a look.
automation, robotics, solar powered furnaces and mass drivers for the produced metals. for companies to get a head-start in the industrialization of space would be a – albeit costly – massive guarantee for economic power for the coming century
The idea of ‘profitable’ will have to be reexamined when we start building stuff in space. probably even the idea of ‘economy’. Lunar mining makes sense for use on the Moon or potentially slinging material to other places in order to have a stockpile of high grade material to start up constructions there. But for Moon-toEarth (or Earth-to-Moon) excahnges of material I see no profitable business case.
Pretty sure the main profit for space mineral extraction would come from asteroids that we change the orbit of, so that they orbit Earth while we extract their valuable minerals. The minerals would be worth a lot of money if they stay in space, because companies and governments would like access to heavy metals in space so they don’t have to pay to launch them. And then some more valuable minerals could make the trip down to Earth as well.
Extracting resources from the moon only makes sense if you’re using those resources on the moon.
Resource extraction is profitable if you need the resources where you are extracting them. And while that is going on, advances might be made that, one day, might make it profitable to sell & ship some of them to Earth.
One thing you’re missing here (among many) is that oxidizer is about 3/4 of the propellant mass of a methane rocket, and the methane itself is only about 1/4 of the mass. So even if you have to bring lots of methane with you to the moon for trips home, there’s a *huge* advantage to producing the oxygen in-situ.
Good essay, but I think you’ll want to do some research on tritium, because it is apparently relatively abundant and sustainable on the lunar surface due to deposition from solar winds, and that could be used as a fuel for nuclear fusion. The trouble being that current fusion technology is not exothermic, and we’ve been trying to make it work in research facilities since the 1960s with no success. However, you’re likely going to find people trying to prop up tritrum and fusion as a justification for the project, and a complete essay should include supporting arguments about it.
I’m more concerned with the change of mass, and the potential change of the gravitational pull on the moon by mining it. I’m no physicist, but I feel it may impact our way of life.
If you need the material on the moon or parhaps for space stations, it is probably cheaper to mine on the moon than to mine on earth and send it into space.
Depends what you are extracting and how you intend to use it.
Bulk minerals to bring back to earth ❌
Water for use on moon or in space ✅
Energy minerals for use in moon or in space ✅
Minerals to use for construction of space craft on moon without needing to escape earths gravity well ✅
Rare minerals for use on earth – this is a maybe. Don’t see any likely candidates, but there could be something found that makes sense.
>there is water which could be used in a Hydro-LOX engine but we need the water for a lunar base.
There’s is quite a lot of water in the right places, though they are certainly finite resources, you don’t actually need that much for fuel. Once you are on the moon or orbiting it, you are basically halfway between anything in the solar system and earth.
The moon is an exceptional staging point, it has low gravity, and no atmosphere to fight when you launch. When you launch towards destinations with an atmosphere you can even make do with ridiculously low amounts of fuel, especially for cargo to that can spend a few months or years in space. An atmosphere will slow you down free of charge or at least allow you to to significantly save on fuel costs. You don’t need anything near the crazy amounts of fuel that you need when launching mass from the surface of the earth.
I mean, you could even launch cubesat type sattelites with a slingshot contraption and tiny chemical propulsion modules to deliver them into moon orbit. And from there use super efficient ion thrusters to make their way to anywhere in the solar system (well, solar panel technology will limit them to about Jupiters orbit).
Think your writeup is missing the value statement entirely. For something like Iron, the value is not to send it to Earth… but to use it OUTSIDE of earth’s gravity. If it costs NASA $50,000 per KG to launch from earth and land on moon… then it would save a TON of money if I could instead get that KG of iron from the Moon. You can extend this value statement out more to say LEO where the cost per KG is like $5,000… so can I produce and launch material from moon (or asteroids) to LEO and be usable (i.e. water, oxygen for IIS or fuel depot’s for rockets). There is no way 1 KG of metal or water from moon can compete with the commodity price on earth.
There are truly only a couple of “potential” resources on the moon that would be beneficial to send back to Earth. Helium 3 can not be produced in quantities on earth and is a potential Fussion reactor… however H3 suffers from a chicken and egg because its hard to do research with a resource that really requires moon mining to industrialize. Other rare resources like Platnium group metals are also a target for space/moon mining as there relatively rare (and therefore expensive) and having access to a much large supply of those materials could make fuel cells much cheaper to produce.
Resource extraction for local use *on the moon* is reasonable because it is likely cheaper than launching those materials up from earth. I agree that extracting materials for use on earth makes little sense, especially for something as cheap as iron. Mass drivers could be less costly to use than rocketry, but the most likely candidates for such trade would be less common commodities such as platinum or neodymium.