- cross-posted to:
- space@kbin.social
- cross-posted to:
- space@kbin.social
Moon mining gains momentum as private companies plan for a lunar economy::A number of entrepreneurial groups have shared their strategies to turn the moon into a hustle and bustle world of marketable services.
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Ew. This sounds like massive public investment in space for massive private profits in space.
Looks like we’ll be at our Expanse style dystopia sooner than expected!
It’s like we have learnt nothing, “let’s strip another celestial body of its minerals then fuck off onto the next when we have had our fill.”
The difference is, there is no natural life to kill on the moon, and if it turns out to be possible, maybe even easier, to mine for necessary metals on the moon then Earth-side mining won’t be necessary
Also, being able to get resources on the moon without having to ship them there from Earth will make it much easier and cheaper to launch spaceships to the rest of the solar system.
So I have two questions from that.
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How much mass can we remove from the moon until we affect it’s rotation around earth?
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What will the ecological impact on earth be if a dozen companies start launching rockets at the moon on a regular basis?
Would it not be super cool to have all those minerals until we have extracted that much from the moon that it’s orbit becomes unstable and then spirals into earth?
Mining enough to alter the orbit of the moon would require a pretty ridiculous amount of time and effort. Much more than our global mining efforts combined and multiplied and on a timescale of thousands of years.
And we only have to launch a few rockets, enough to set up a self-sufficient base which can then produce more rockets and fuel from resources on site. Not to mention it’s much easier, and even feasible with existing materials, to build a space elevator on the moon.
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Man I thought by 2023 I’d be taking my jetpack to my moon meetings not arguing over whether we should strip mine the damn place.
We should declare the moon like a national park (global park) and preserve it as is.
Why? I would rather have preservation on earth, than on the moon.
You are kidding right? The moon is essential for life on Earth.
The moon is essential for life on Earth.
Yes, but mostly by it’s mass, and maybe by it’s albedo. Is there anything else about the moon of relevance for life on Earth?
It’s mass of 7 * 1022 kg is so enormous, it wouldn’t make a dent if we add or remove hundreds of gigatons, which is far beyond our lifting capabilities at least for the next decades.
It’s surface is so huge, we cannot affect it’s albedo significantly.
So even if we approached the moon as a mere profit to be exploited, maximizing output and disregarding any concerns, how could this be detrimental to life on Earth?
The moon will be fine and the earth will be fine.
But for me the idea of some private company extracting massive amounts of profit from something like the moon just sounds wrong.
We all know they’re not going up there for the good of humanity or whatever. They want to turn their billions into trillions.
Personally I think they need to give up their wealth on earth first, and then we can think about how best to extract resources from the moon so that it will be beneficial to humans rather than a few bank accounts. We couldn’t do it with oil, but maybe we can with rare moon material? One can only dream.
I know I know pie in the sky right?
If we can replace the kind of mining that destroys the environment here on Earth with mining outside of Earth (not just the Moon, but maybe even more importantly asteroids on the Asteroid Belt) how is that a bad thing?
Even having Moon mining in addition to Earth-based mining will probably reduce the impact of the latter, if only by pushing down the prices of certain ores, making some Earth-based mining operations for those unprofitable and forcing them to close down (or never start in the first place) which will be good for people and good for Nature.
Or do you think the people doing the mining here on Earth (and more often than not leaving behind massive ecological damage) aren’t “extracting massive amounts of profit” for doing it right here were they do a lot more damage?!
You really need to look at it in aggregate, not just consider only the first level effects and hence “more mining anywhere” = “bad” - “more mining way out there were it can’t possibly harm people or Nature” is close to the best thing that could happen to our resource-intensive Economy (the best would be the end of Consumerism, but there are way more powerful moneyed interests align against it that against Moon mining).
That’s how you know people crying for the environment aren’t honest about it. Because when presented with a viable alternative, they flip out with TECHNOLOGY BAD
That’s how you know people crying for the environment aren’t honest about it. Because when presented with a viable alternative, they flip out with TECHNOLOGY BAD
Maybe some, certainly not all. I’m deeply worried about the state of our environment. I’m even an activist, but welcome space industry, because it can reduce pressure down here. Also because TECHNOLOGY GOOD.
There’s even a whole solar punk instance on lemmy. Not exactly my breed, just pointing out reality is and people are more diverse.
The presence of all that material up there is essential to life on Earth (via the tides).
Its surface features are not: in fact you would need massive megastructures for people down here to even notice any change to those features.
Absolutelly, lets not remove the Moon when we get to the point of being capable of doing so, but that’s an entirelly different level of preservation than making the whole thing be preserved according to the same rules as national parks.
An airless desert impossible to reach for and with zero impact (even indirect) on the life of for 99.999% of people, with almost as much surface are as the whole of the Americas and which is entirelly devoid of life and always will be, is the last place you need to preserve.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
Why do you keep saying that?
'Cause they pay me every time I do. You’re so smart, why don’t you know that?
Well, if anything is going to get us there, and establish a permanent colony, it’s corporate interests.
Can’t wait for the first McDonald’s on the moon.
