The Economic Development of the Moon

MarkWhittington writes "Andrew Smith, the author of Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, recently published a polemic in the British newspaper The Guardian, entitled Plundering the Moon, that argued against the economic development of the Moon. Apparently the idea of mining Helium 3, an isotope found on the Moon but not on the Earth (at least in nature) disturbs Mr. Smith from an environmentalist standpoint. An examination of the issue makes one wonder why."

Wonder and amazement

[SIGALRM]

From TFA[1]:

The prospect of either Helium 3 fueled fusion or space based solar power or a combination of both replacing fossil fuels should excite people who express concern for the Earth's environment

It's a big, dead rock in space, boys. I doubt that the ridiculous cost of space travel will ever fall enough to make it worthwhile, but in case that happens, the lunar environmentalists will be there to file EPA complaints against anyone trying to make the moon economically productive.

If you looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, would you be filled with a sense of wonder and pride about the ingenuity and courage of your fellow man, or with forbidding and dread that the moon was being raped?

Re:Wonder and amazement

[schlouse]

I, for one, welcome our new moon raping overlords.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

which just cries out for a visual, so here ya go:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Le_Voyage_dans_la_lune.jpg [wikimedia.org]

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Marcos Eliziario]

I, for one, welcome our new PER* overlords.
==
* People For The Ethical Treatment of Rocks.

Re:

[wootest]

Or "PETR".

Re:

[Marcos Eliziario]

disleyx, you nkow....

I'd vote for...

[camperdave]

If you looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, would you be filled with a sense of wonder and pride about the ingenuity and courage of your fellow man, or with forbidding and dread that the moon was being raped?

Given our current level of technology, if I looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, I would be filled with a sense of wonder about the ingenuity of aliens, and with forbidding and dread that the Earth would be next.

Sure...

[msimm]

Why not. I'm a clean enough energy source.

Re:Sure...

[SpaceLifeForm]

Not to mention that you are free labor, and food to boot.

Aw

[msimm]

Now you're making me feel like junk food. :(

Re:

[geekoid]

On the plus side, we would have one hell of a focus on space exploration the next day!

Re:I'd vote for...

[acvh]

I would be more amazed at the resolving power of my telescope if I could see a tiny robot mining on the moon.

Hello, Mister Anderson

[Travoltus]

We've notice you studying the moon with a certain high powered telescope.

This telescope has enabled you to see things that you are not authorized to observe, and thus it puts you in violation of certain top secret Homeland Security directives. This incurs certain... penalties, which we may have to discuss with you later.

Now, on the other hand, Mr. Anderson, we're willing to wipe your slate clean... if you tell us who sent you this telescope...

Re:Wonder and amazement

[ShieldW0lf]

Well, from a practical standpoint, we should be using earthbound energy sources to create space based energy sources, then switch to them entirely, and in the same way, we should be using earthbound resources to gain the capacity to gather off-earth resources, and eventually, harvest material that comes from outside the solar system and switch to them entirely.

You stretch the timeline out long enough and assume success and growth, someday we're going to want to have this solar system as a Galactic Wildlife Park. We want it to be the shining jewel of humanity, not a burnt out old husk that we fled because we had to.

You Can't Skip Steps

[BlackGriffen]

In order to get to the point that we could make an entire solar system a boondoggle, we'll have to get out of ours first. That means tapping energy and resources available in the solar system, whether the process is pretty or not.

It's all getting destroyed by the sun in a few billion years, anyway.

Re:

[ThosLives]

...using ethanol which is renewable as a fuel source for his jets....

He can have fun with that when his jets' range gets decreased by around 40%* (or the useful payload is decreased by 40% because of the extra fuel required for the same range) because of the difference in energy content between ethanol (which is already partially oxidized) and Jet-A. There's a good reason why we use petrochemicals as vehicle fuel, and it's not simply because at one time they were less expensive.

Mass and volume energy den

Re:space tourism and resources

[falconwolf]

Ethanol is a horrid fuel, especially when made from corn

Corn is a horrible source for ethanol, I oppose corn for ethnaol. A better is sugarcane, but even better for making ethanol is Switchgrass [wikipedia.org]. Ah, perhaps I should of finished your post before replying as I see you say sugar cane and switchgrass are better.

I don't know if Branson is concentrating on ethanol or biofuels in general. Unlike ethanol biodiesel can be made from more sources. When Rudolph Diesel designed his engine he designed it to run on vegetable oil, when he showed the engine during the World Expo in Paris he used peanut oil but he also demonstrated running it with hemp oil. And biodiesel can be made from used cooking oil, instead of used oil being a waste biodiesel could be made from it. Wllie Nelson [wikipedia.org] started, invested in, a plant making biodiesel [wikipedia.org] and formed Willie Nelson Biodiesel [wikipedia.org]. In the 1930s Henry Ford designed and build a vehicle on his Iron Mountain Estate using a hemp, aka marijuana, based fuel.

Actually this was part of the reason hemp was made illegal via the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act [wikipedia.org]. Prior to the passage of the act scientific research showed hemp was an excellent industrial plant. Besides fuel hemp was good for making plastics and paper. MIT published a study showing an acre of hemp could produce more fiber for paper than an acre of forest. The use of hemp for fuel interfered with Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Using hemp for paper meant William Hearst's, a big California newspaper publisher who owned thousands of acres of forest, would see a loss in clear cutting forest for paper pulp. Then in the mid '30s Du Pont received a patent on making plastics from petroleum, so again hemp was seen as another threat. Andrew Mellon, a major funder of Du Pont, had his nephew-in-law Harry J Anslinger [wikipedia.org] appointed as the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics [wikipedia.org] where they were able to push to have hemp made illegal.

Falcon

Re:

[Slugster]

... And biodiesel can be made from used cooking oil, instead of used oil being a waste biodiesel could be made from it ...

I do not understand the emphasis that advocates of biodiesel like to place on used cooking oil.

Years back, I worked at a moderately-sized gas station (16 pumps, and not near any major highways), and it was normal to sell ~10,000 gallons of fuel per day. There was a McDonald's nearby on the same road, and I don't ever remember seeing a tanker truck come by daily to being them new cook

'Reefer Madness'

[falconwolf]

"Reefer Madness" was a bunch of lies made to induce fear in people. For instance it makes marijuana smokers as being driven to violence, however there is no scientific data to support this. Actually what science evidence there is show it has the opposite affect, it calms people so they only want to relax. That's why the Soviet Union made it illegal, they couldn't afford people who only wanted to hang out.

(it's now in the public domain-Yay!)

Another movie, also in the public domain, on hemp is the mov

Re:

[falconwolf]

There was a McDonald's nearby on the same road, and I don't ever remember seeing a tanker truck come by daily to being them new cooking oil.

Any given restaurant doesn't go through that much oil but a lot of used oil ends up in the waste stream. I worked in some fast food joins and the only thing I had ever heard used oil being used for was adding it to slop to feed pigs. Most of it ends up being dumped though, it's a waste. However it can be combined with raw oil to make biodiesel. That way there's n

Re:Wonder and amazement

[jtroutman]

If you looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, would you be filled with a sense of wonder and pride about the ingenuity and courage of your fellow man, or with forbidding and dread that the moon was being raped?

If I looked at the sky through a telescope and saw a tiny robot mining plant there, mining the moon for energy resources, I'd be filled with a sense of wonder at how far telescope technology had come. Even the most powerful scopes we have here on Earth can't pick out the man-made stuff already on the moon.

Re:

[Kremmy]

I've wondered about that. We've got telescopes giving us images of things far beyond on our solar system, so why not high resolution imagery of the moon? It would be trivial to solve the debate on whether we actually went to the moon or not if we could look in a telescope and see what we left there. Surely the Hubble occasionally pointed at the moon, are there any images from that? I'd really like to know.

Re:

[Chosen Reject]

The Hubble telescope can't really take pictures of Earth [hubblesite.org] because it is moving too fast. I could be wrong, but maybe the Hubble can't take pictures of the moon for the same reason.

Re:

[hardburn]

No, it's because the size of the optics was limited by what they could carry in the shuttle. Here's the math [cornell.edu], for the interested.

In any case, pictures from the Hubble will never convince the moon hoax people. If the landings were faked in the first place, how much harder is it to fake a few telescope pictures?

Re:Wonder and amazement

[domatic]

It sounds like the premise of the next Bond flick: MoonRaper.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[sdnick]

Apparently the idea of mining Helium 3, an isotope found on the Moon but not on the Earth (at least in nature) disturbs Mr. Smith from an environmentalist standpoint.

There is no legitimate environmentalist standpoint worth discussing about the Moon. There is no life on the Moon. There is no environment for environmentalists to worry about. If they're worried about the faint possibility that human mining will somehow create some crater on the moon visible from the Earth, they can just pretend an asteroid made it, same as the millions of other craters littering the moon's surface. Or just perform the mining on the horribly scarred side of the Moon facing away from the Earth and dare anyone to claim that man's activities make it look worse.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Waffle Iron]

Serious mining can move serious amounts of material in a short time, and if the moon became Earth's primary source of material for power, I suspect we'd make a measurable impact within decades.

We're talking about fusion fuel here. Worldwide energy needs can be provided by a few thousand tons of fusion fuel per year. So with the moon's total mass of almost 1e20 tons, it would take hundreds of times the age of the universe to make any significant impact on tides.

But don't worry, it's not going to happen anyway. To harvest usable amounts of the trace quantities of He3 on the moon, we'd have to remotely mine and process countless gigatons of lunar dust. This would be an operation that dwarfs coal mining on earth, but be thousands of times more expensive to carry out. It would almost be certainly easier and cheaper to develop boron/hydrogen fusion technology here on earth, or deal with the drawbacks of simpler deuterium/lithium fusion technology, than to undertake this outer space pipe dream.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[TroyM]

Please quit injecting reality into our Sci-Fi fantasies.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Socguy]

Ya, I gotta say that as much as I support the environment here on earth, I can't think of a single reason why we shouldn't mine the moon....

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Smauler]

I personally believe that _anything_ that helps us get off this planet is basically a good thing. I don't just believe this because of the eggs in one basket argument, though that is an important reason for humanity to not just live on Earth. The main argument in my eyes is that the faster we get into space, the faster I (or my son/daughter, or their son/daughter, etc) am going to get a spaceship.

Also, it's a big dead rock in space now. Geologically it's pretty useful. Militarily it's an imperative to control it so that someone else doesn't. It _will_ be of strategic importance in the future.

Mining the moon for minerals is _not_ raping it. Firstly, you're using the word rape badly (rape requires ability to consent, unless you look to some archaic texts). The moon cannot give consent. It's a rock. It cannot be raped. Secondly, why on earth would mining the moon be considered bad in the first place? I mean, as you said, it's just a big old rock.

Re:

[Ucklak]

Some people like a city view, some people like a mountain view, some people like an ocean view.
This is no different.

The city view in Honolulu is offensive to those that choose to stay on Molokai or Kauai.
Some who live in the plains might like the city view in the mountains that Honolulu has to offer.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Rycross]

Everything is non-renewable given a long enough time frame. Entropy is a bitch.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Fractal Dice]

Solution: harvest entropy.

Re:

[Garridan]

An entropy in the hand, is better than two in the bush.

Re:

[sssssss27]

Everything is non-renewable given a long enough time frame. Entropy is a bitch.

Wouldn't that violate the law of conservation of energy?

Re:

[RsG]

That is the law of conservation of energy. All energy sources are finite. Over enough time, they will all be depleted. You cannot create new energy, merely extract potential energy.

Depleted energy isn't gone in the sense of destroyed, it's been converted into useless heat. Its still conserved, but the laws of thermodynamics get in the way of using it.

Actually, it's a law of thermodynamics (#2)

[benhocking]

1. The first law (conservation of energy) says you can't win.
2. The second law says you can't even break even.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[Kjella]

There's a huge difference between sources of energy where the future energy potential is affected by our current usage and not. A windmill on a windy day might not be renewed by wind the next day, but the point is that whether we captured that energy or not makes no difference on future winds. That big honking ball of fire called the Sun is like a big campfire - you can warm yourself on it, stay far away from it, put up a solar panel next to it, but in every case the entropy is increased all the same and you're no worse off by taking advantage of it. Compare that to any fossil fuels, fission or fusion then consuming one unit today is one unit less you can use later. The quicker you capture a renewable source the more energy you can harvest from it, the quicker you consume a non-renewable source the faster you'll run out. Something we're learning in oil economics 101 so right about now...

Re:Wonder and amazement

[ultranova]

Everything is non-renewable given a long enough time frame. Entropy is a bitch.

Actually, wrong. In the long run, entropy is your friend. This is because the maximum amount of entropy any given volume of space can contain is determined by the size of said area (to be exact, it is determined by the surface area of the event horizon of a black hole filling said volume). As long as entropy is less than this amount, it keeps growing, driving all kinds of interesting systems - such as yourself - as it goes.

If the universe was static, entropy would eventually reach its maximum, leading to heat death of the universe and the cessation of all interesting events. But the universe is not static, it is expanding. Consequently, the maximum amount of entropy the universe as a whole can contain is also increasing. If the expansion goes on forever, so does the growth of entropy and all that it drives.

In other words, in an expanding universe there will always be useful energy sources, by the virtue of it expanding.

Re:Wonder and amazement

[jollyreaper]

In other words, in an expanding universe there will always be useful energy sources, by the virtue of it expanding.

Until the cosmologists change their theories, I believe what you are saying here was two flaws. First, an endlessly expanding universe means that the clumps of matter will get further and further apart, making the formation of stellar nurseries and new stars from the old material less likely. Second, there's only so much hydrogen in the universe, the same goes for the other elements that undergo fusion in stars. Once those elements have all been used up, there won't be anything left but stellar husks. Likewise, there would only be so much radioactive material left for use in reactors by whatever still lives. If we suppose that some super-science could allow them to split regular atoms for energy, maybe reverse the charges of the subatomic particles and create antimatter, there's still only so much matter left to annihilate. At the end, all will be nothing.

Re:

[ultranova]

If we suppose that some super-science could allow them to split regular atoms for energy, maybe reverse the charges of the subatomic particles and create antimatter, there's still only so much matter left to annihilate. At the end, all will be nothing.

If we assume superscience, we can get energy from the expansion of space itself.

The expansion of space means that any two objects occupying a different location will be pushed apart since the space between them is expanding. They experience a force ident

Re:

[cyphercell]

maybe we can dump other shit on it, sort of like trading

Not in any measurable way

[el_munkie]

The mass of He-3 on the moon is a ridiculously tiny fraction of the mass of the moon itself. Even if we got all the He-3, it would in no way affect the tides.

Re:

[azuredrake]

Additionally, the tidal forces of the moon are slowly robbing the Earth of its momentum. The Earth used to spin much faster, rotating as many as 400 times during a single orbit of the sun. Taking a tiny chunk out of that slowdown might not be such a bad thing, eh?

Re:

[causality]

Well, since you came right out and asked...

I, for one, would welcome our new moon-mining robotic overlords. :-)

I wish there were electrified, remotely-activated keyboards just for the purpose of delivering a shock to everyone who posts this meme and all of its variants. The potential for abuse would be worth it. "I for one welcome our new keyboard-electrifying *BZZZZZT* *clunk*" ...

You know what it's made of, right?

[jdtch]

I think neglecting the potential for cheese mining is the real crime here.

Re:

[sssssss27]

Wallace and Gromit are working on that

The moon doesn't have an "environment"

[Anonymous Coward]

As I think of it. I think most people think of clean air and water and an ecosystem as an environment. Not a bunch of dead dust in a vacuum.

It seems that many in the "environmental" movement just want nothing to change from its "natural" state, even where there is no nature.

Re:

[Who235]

How much mining, exactly, do you think can be done?

Do you really think anyone can alter the mass of a 7.36×10^22 kilogram rock enough to change its gravity? Do you think they can take _that_ much off?

Really?

Re:The moon doesn't have an "environment"

[cheebie]

Mass of the Moon: 7.3477×10^22 Kg according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon [wikipedia.org].

Number of humans currently on earth, massively rounded up: 10^10.

That means that every person on earth would need to use up
seven TRILLION Kg of material to exhaust the moon. Every single
person on earth could grab ten tons of moon-material and have no
appreciable effect on the Moon's mass or it's effect on the tides.

Re:

[2short]

"Basically this guy is one of the large majority of environmentalists..."

And you're one of the large majority of poor reasoners who pick some lone nutcase and assume he speaks for most of whoever he claims to speak for.

Though I am definitely an environmentalist, I'll only claim to speak for myself when I say: If helps make the Earth any nicer for humans, Fuck the Moon. Strip mine it and pave what's left it in radioactive waste.

As a practical matter, getting to space takes so many resources that I don't se

Re:The moon doesn't have an "environment"

[SIGALRM]

Hey, I know you're trolling, but your comment was so full of inaccuracies I just couldn't help myself.

tides are caused by the moon

Common misperception. Tides are influenced by the moon but are caused by the rotation of the Earth and many other factors.

you don't think a bunch of *GREEDY* companies who's hunger for MORE

Companies feed the hunger of consumers. They may be greedy, but we demand the energy.

thus over time dwindling it's MASS

You do realize the moon is quite large (would fit into the Pacific ocean), correct? How very knee-jerk of you.

I won't give them the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't cause irrevocable harm while we are still alive

I think you underestimate the difficult proposition of even getting to the moon and mining a single truckload of He3 in your lifetime, let alone a significant portion.

If you are, someone ought to fire you, out of a cannon, into the sun!

Flamebait. I'm not taking it, but isn't the "do it for the children" a pretty ridiculous argument in this (very hypothetical case)?

GPP was not a retard, examine yourself before calling others names pls.

Re:

[lgw]

Asteroids as a resource makes much more sense but businesses won't want to do that. Can't make money off of something that doesn't also risk the lives of everyone else on earth after all!!!

Your worries are unfounded. Let's say you push an asteroid into orbit containing a cubic mile of gold. Doesn't do you much good up there, does it? No, you have to somehow get that gold to the surface of the Earth. Sure, there's always a country somewhere we wouldn't mind turning into a crater (a crater *made of gold*!), but what if they miss? I think the businesses have the "risking the lives of everyone else on Earth" part worked out fine for asteroids!

Re:

[jpatters]

If you are, someone ought to fire you, out of a cannon, into the sun!

Watch out... every action has an equal and opposite reaction... if you fire me off into the sun, you might just send the Earth hurtling out in the other direction...

Praxis

[kerohazel]

If we mine the moon, then we'll become dependent on its resources. When it finally explodes (as moons are notorious for doing), our glorious space empire will fall.

Watched "The Time Machine" too many times

[furtive_glance]

In the movie the main character is having an interesting journey through time until he hit a 'bump' at August 26th 2037, where he finds a Moon mining operation has disrupted the lunar orbit. As a result, the Moon is breaking apart and showering Earth with massive chunks of rock. His presence outside of a shelter leads to an attempt by two military personnel to arrest him, but after they draw his attention to the shattered Moon and give him a brief explanation behind its present state, there is a scuffle and

Re:

[yotto]

I believe his point was that if you give someone a gun and a badge, the moon could be falling from the sky and they'd *still* try to pick on some innocent bystander.

I would say his arguments are specious...

[Nova Express]

...except he didn't make any. His rhetoric boils down to "Environmentalism is good. Looking at the Earth from the Moon helped kickstart environmentalism. Therefore we shouldn't mine the moon." It's a non-sequitur on the order of the Chewbacca Defense. He expects that yelling "Environmentalism!" will cause enough knees to jerk to sway opinion without actually making any arguments. (The sad thing is he may be right, given as how many people treat environmentalism as the new religion. [crichton-official.com] )

Are we to avoid mining the moon because it will harm the native lifeforms? Oh yeah, there aren't any.

Do we need to invent the word "rock-hugger"?

Re:I would say his arguments are specious...

[sheepweevil]

I risk going off-topic here, but people whom most would describe as 'rock huggers' exist already. They wish to prevent rock climbers from climbing on certain rock faces.

Rock climbers use 'chalk' that prevents hands from being sweaty, but it has the unfortunate side effect of putting white patches wherever there are handholds on the rock face. Also, one method of climbing a rock wall involves having metal pitons drilled into the rock. Some groups lobby to have rock climbers stop climbing in areas, or disallow them from placing pitons.

So I guess the argument in this case with the moon isn't about lifeforms, it is more about aesthetics; similar to the 'rock huggers' I have described. But I don't see how mass mining of the moon would have a visual effect on the moon's appearance for a very very long time.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[A beautiful mind]

I agree with what you've said, just not the site you've linked. Crichton is not a scientist and spreads FUD about climate change, just from the opposite blindsided viewpoint.

Re:I would say his arguments are specious...

[Watts Martin]

While Sheepweevil makes essentially the same point, you could make the argument that restricting industry on the moon is good from the perspective of preserving natural monuments. There are a lot of sites right here on Earth that have no direct economic value, but that, it could be argued, have their own intrinsic, non-economic value. That notion of intrinsic value tends to sit very poorly with those who define all external value as economic, but conservation and preservation on purely economic measures has always been dicey. (i.e., if you tried to make an argument for restricting whaling based on the grounds that if you killed all of them, there wouldn't be a whaling industry any more, the moment someone comes along with a paper demonstrating that a higher return on investment can be achieved by killing all the whales now and sinking part of the profits into something else, you're hosed. An argument for saving whales has to assign them intrinsic value separate from their economic use.)

Of course, if I take off the devil's advocate hat, I might make the more prosaic point that there are a whole frikkin' lot of technological issues that have to be solved to get to the point where having this argument even makes sense. It's easy to pile onto Andrew Smith, the author of the anti-plundering column, but I'm not giving any kudos to Mark Whittington, the guy who wrote the response and managed to get Slashdot to put this on the front page. Smith's column is actually very short and doesn't really talk about "saving the moon's environment." Whittington is by and large using this as an excuse to trot out hoary old libertarian-crank* nonsense about how environmentalists are all anti-technology luddites who won't be happy unless we return to the Dark Ages.

*Before the libertarians leap on this, I do distinguish between "libertarian" and "libertarian-crank." Drawing the distinction is beyond the scope of this footnote.

Short-sighted world rapers

[Cajun Hell]

If you let the helium out, it will stop floating up in the sky. Guess where it will fall.

Screw volcanoes; some people say the dinosaurs died because they had no space program. Maybe they died because they did have one, and made the same type of arrogant mistake.

Mr Moonbeam

[Doc Ruby]

Earth's sister has played a role in teaching us to value our environment: how extraordinary to think that the next giant leap for the environmental movement might be a campaign to stop state-sponsored mining companies chomping her up in glorious privacy, a quarter of a million miles from our ravaged home.

He doesn't even give a reason why the environmental movement might want to stop mining the Moon. Maybe he thinks environmentalism is about "pretty Nature, don't hurt her", rather than survival and legacy, but he doesn't even say so.

The only argument his protest makes about mining the Moon is in favor: mining the He-3 would reduce the need to damage the Earth producing energy here.

There might be an argument for science preserving the layout of the Lunar surface for study (eg, the record of impact angles and composition which accumulate billions of years of astrophysical history), but there are technical solutions to that problem, and he doesn't even mention them (except some handwaving about lacking "science" in our goals).

That is the kind of taking "environmentalism's" name in vain that gives legitimate environmentalism a bad name.

Flawed Philosophy

[Toonol]

This is a very harmful idea. A certain amount of environmentalism makes sense; disrupting ecosystems can have harmful repercussions, as can running out of non-renewable resources, etc.

But this idea of preserving the lunar environment seems to me to be based on the idea that objects are better left untouched by humanity. That things should be left untouched, even when it is detrimental to humanity, and no worse than neutral to our ecosystem. This is the type of nonsense that, in the extreme, calls for humanity to let itself go extinct, so as to stop our plundering of the Earth.

Nothing in nature is a value, without something living that gives it that worth.

Re:

[Adambomb]

The only thing I can even imagine would be a difference in tidal forces, but I doubt we would even be able to MOVE enough matter off the moon for that to make a difference. This is really a non-story beyond exposing that some will extend their ideologies to settings where they do not apply, without even stating what we should look into in terms of why.

Forget environmentalism-what about Int'l Relations

[langelgjm]

I don't think environmentalism is the important issue here. I'm more interested in what impact the economic development of the moon will have on international relations.

Whose moon is it? Of course we have treaties, but when a company starts mining up there, you can bet the profits aren't going to be distributed very widely. Besides the ethical implications of this, how are other states going to react to an American or Chinese company mining a resource that used to be considered off-limits and belonging to all, until it was convenient for that to no longer be the case? Is this just a case of first come, first serve capitalism? There are more things at stake here than just environmentalism.

Re:Forget environmentalism-what about Int'l Relati

[Toonol]

I don't think environmentalism is the important issue here. I'm more interested in what impact the economic development of the moon will have on international relations.

Now, that's a more reasonable concern. I think it's a problem that needs solved, but it's not an insolvable problem. I would imagine that by the time we can really begin raping the moon's resources in appreciable quantities, there will be some political guidelines in place.

Re:

[tftp]

We could, for example, implement a Moon use tax, and all people on Earth would be getting an equal share from use of each square mile of Moon's surface, payable by Moon mining companies to the governments and then distributed as people of each country want. That tax would be small, compared to the costs involved in Moon mining and sales of resulting goods.

Re:

[bugnuts]

Keeping the moon "pristine" is not a flawed philosophy. It's valid, but any sort of ecological basis is certainly flawed... there's little ecology to be preserved on the moon. In 100,000 years or so, it might even be torn apart by tidal forces and become a ring around the earth.

The valid basis is one the article scorned. That basis is "beauty," not some fear of technology. It's based on the natural tendency of people to exploit, and to destroy. And especially destructive are those seeking riches, eithe

Simple solution

[rossdee]

Lets mine the far side of the moon, where it won't be seen by those on earth.

Re:Simple solution

[Megane]

Lets mine the far side of the moon, where it won't be seen by those on earth.

There are people who would consider that not just raping the Moon Goddess, but anally raping the Moon Goddess.

(P.S.: In before rule 34!)

Ummmm. o-kay.

[Penguinisto]

This guy proves once and for all that for some elements (not ALL, damnit - just some), it isn't about preserving an ecosystem or conserving species, but about absolute and unrelenting self-hatred for the human species.

Seriously - if it was an argument about contributing to space junk (which can be a hazard to life and limb), or an argument about leaving nascent life (like, say, on Europa or Titan) alone to develop, play... I can grok those arguments.

But the ones presented? ...it's the friggin' Moon! There ain't jack shit for life or biomass there! The only non-commercial value it currently has offhand are the Apollo landing sites (for historical value), and that's it!

IMHO, tear that bastard up if it generates commerce, gives us extra space to live, acts as an astronomical platform, and more importantly, if it takes humankind that much closer to becoming a space-faring race. It's not like we'll reduce its mass enough to really worry about instability (at least not within the next billion years or so), and it's (IMHO) free and open for the taking - belonging (nor should it ever belong) to no earth-bound nation.

/P

Re:Belonging to no earth-bound nation?

[Penguinisto]

Gee, that's a nice sentiment, but history says that the moon belongs to whoever can get the most weapons up there first.

...for how long?

In the end, the native population will get large enough to separate very nicely from whatever nation put (most of) them there.

After all, history has some rather handy parallels: The United States' founding stands out as a rather large and violent example... but there are lots of less-violent ones too (Australia, Canada...) and some which sort of split on their own when the colonizing nation became too weak to hold on to it (such as most of South America).

/P

Another crater

[flyingfsck]

I guess he is worried that the moon will have another crater or two. Actually it may be nice if he and all his followers and sympathisers would go to the moon and leave us here on earth alone.

What environment?

[SKorvus]

I am an very environmentally-conscious person: walking, biking or transit, no car. Vegan. Local, preferably organic produce. Buy used goods where-ever possible, make do or repair rather than buying. I give that as background, so that it's clear I'm not a typical consumer that thinks my personal desires outweigh impact to the environment.

That that said, I must ask: what environment? The moon is a lifeless, barren hunk of rock. All that has ever occurred in its history, is being pummeled by countless meteors to create a scarred and pulverized surface. There is no environment to protect, only dust and rocks. And as pristine and spartan beauty that may be, there's simply no one to admire it.

Right now, the universe appears devoid of life, except on our tiny blue rock, and it's always in danger of being snuffed out by one stray asteroid. Getting humanity up into space is the best thing we can do, for us, and for the Earth. Where we go, we will bring life with us. We will create new environments on any planets we settle. We are the seed by which Earth's life can spread throughout the galaxy.

Seeing lights glittering back at us from human settlements during a new moon shouldn't be viewed as a desecration of something worth saving, but the growth of new life where there was none before.

And If We Don't...

[Nom du Keyboard]

And if we don't plunder the Moon, what happens? It sits up there in pristine condition for what -- forever?

Just look at all the beautiful He3. Isn't it beautiful? Aren't you glad your daddy stopped them from plundering the Moon of all of it so that we can almost enjoy this unspoiled view of it through the completely polluted atmosphere of Earth because we never got that clean energy source from up there?

Yeah, right! There are some real clowns in the world, and the guy against this qualifies as two of them when weighted in the average of clown foolishness.

Re:

[onemorechip]

Pristine? FTA: Not that the Moon can be actually said to be pristine. After being formed billions of years ago, the Moon has been subject to bombardment by meteors, asteroids, and comets that has left craters and other scars on its surface.

I think the author has about as much understanding of the meaning of "pristine" as Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens [thinkexist.com].

Falacy

[femto]

The rebuttal is based on the fallacy that without life environmental protection has no merit. If an environment is devoid of life it is still an environment. The land itself is worthy of protection. It's something Australia's aborigines have been pointing out for years, that their land has intrinsic value. Most of the rest of Australia has taken the moon mining viewpoint and desecrated the land in the name of development.

From a purely selfish human point of view there might also come a day when people

Re:Falacy

[Jerf]

From a purely selfish human point of view there might also come a day when people want to visit that untouched environment.

So, on the one hand, we have the Moon.

• Vast energy and material resources that will allow untold bazillions of years of human lifespan.
• Vast energy and material resources that will allow the flourishing ecosystems that Man will bring with him, totalling even more untold bazillions of years of life. (If we truly colonize the Moon, only the first generation or two will live in the sterile settlements we all imagine.)
• Vast energy and material resources which will allow untold bazillions of years of life for new life forms, those adapted to the lunar environments and those partially or entirely created by Man.
• An insurance policy for intelligent life as we know it (not just Man, you know, not for much longer) against an unfortunate accident on the Earth.
• A launching base for further exploration and the spreading of yet more life, wonderful, vibrant, diverse life across the universe.

Against this, you argue

• Somebody, someday, might want to see the original moon.

How unbelievably fucking selfish to deny the universe life so that you can see a pretty rock. Get a poster or something already. If you try, you might be able to get one with a unicorn on it too; bonus!

Environmentalists ought to be leading the charge for space colonization. Forget saving ecosystems that do pretty well without your help... what about the ecosystems that don't even exist yet? Biodiversity? You ain't seen nothing yet. If you love life, don't stand in front of it.

Re:Falacy

[femto]

Yeah, but this isn't just any rock. It's the most significant rock in human history, from ancient times to now.

Here is a precedent. There is absolutely no question that Uluru [wikipedia.org] deserves protection. It's protected by a World Heritage Order, which puts it in the global crown jewels. What is it? It's a bloody big rock, just like the moon.

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Bad analogy. Who'd ever want to live in Sydney? :)

Weapons of Helium 3 destruction

[heroine]

This quest for Helium 3 and water on the moon sounds like a quest for WMD. They're not going to find anything. The real value of the moon is space for humans to live on. We're out of space on Earth.

Re:

[geekoid]

No, healium 3 is on the moon. That's a fact.

Another fact is that we are not over populated at all. Hell, tyou could put everyone in the world in Texas, and none of them would be able to touch another.

There is plenty of food, and we can bring it anywhere. The problem is political.
There are people in power who, literally, would rather let food rot in a warehouse while there people starve then feed their people.

Um...

[stranger_to_himself]

Where in the Guardian article does Smith claim that mining the moon is bad? He just points out that it is the likeliest cause for renewed interest in moon missions and goes over a couple of the good and bad consequences. There's no argument in there either for or against. At least from reading the article I've decided moon mining is a pretty good idea.

Even the last sentence, which is jumped on by the AC article only describes a possible environmentalist reaction.

Control of distribution

[Studio A]

We already have a source of clean limitless power: solar. But anyone can generate it! On the other hand, the distribution of energy harvested from the moon would be a tightly controlled affair. Very lucrative.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

We'll meet you halfway -- literally

[Dirtside]

How about this as a compromise: We'll only mine/develop/harvest/rape the side of the moon that faces AWAY from Earth. That way he doesn't have to see it change from Earth. And since Luna has no atmosphere (and not enough gravity to ever hold one), there's no worry about pollution smogging up the near side, or (in general) effects generated on the far side from propagating to the near side.

Just kidding! I don't have any problem with developing the moon; this guy's wrong. Not that being careful custodians

We must protect it!

[popo]

We must protect our lifeless, uninhabitable and toxic environments from our waste and pollution, lest they become er... lifeless, toxic and uh.. uninabitable... oh never mind.

Linked article author is troll...

[Ardeaem]

From the linked article:

One can be forgiven for suspecting that the true motives of environmentalists, whether they oppose mining the Moon, drilling for oil in Alaska, or building wind farms off Nantucket, involve less a love for the environment and more a hostility for technology itself.

I believe I speak for most environmentalists on Slashdot (having read the comments about this article) and most environmentalists in general (although I can't be sure) that the implication that environmentalists are just crazy Ludites is crazy in itself. Only someone completely cut off from average, everyday environmentalists would say such a thing. The evidence just on Slashdot is overwhelming; no one would say Slashdotters are hostile towards technology, and many (most?) could be described as environmentalists. This just doesn't square with reality.

Just because one (or a few) environmentalist has a (to us) wacky view, doesn't mean he represents the whole of environmentalists. The only reason you'd imply this is if you had an agenda, and the author of the linked article clearly does.

Re:Linked article author is troll...

[bnenning]

the implication that environmentalists are just crazy Ludites is crazy in itself

Most aren't. But unfortunately the few that are have a lot of influence. Look at the utterly irrational fear of nuclear power they've created, when by any environmental standard it's tremendously better than fossil fuels. For them, the real problem is not environmental damage but our decadent materialist lifestyles, and anything that allows us to continue on that path must be opposed.

A lot of dirt, not much helium-3

[iamlucky13]

A lot of us are anxious to see some major commercial application of space (see the recent discussion on space-based solar power, too), but I'm afraid helium-3 mining on the moon is not a feasible one.

First of all, Helium-3 already exists in smaller amounts on earth. It makes up about 0.00138% of the helium on the earth, as opposed to 0.00138% of helium on the moon. More importantly, it can also be synthesized by deuterium fusion or by tritium decay, although current production is only a few kilograms per year. However, one of the first generation fusion fuels is deuterium, so it's very likely that first generation technology could eventually be used to make fuel for second generation fusion plants.

Second, obviously, we have not achieved practical hydrogen fusion yet, much less helium fusion, which is harder. The current ITER timeline estimates the first commercial hydrogen fusion plants will come online around 2040-2050. Helium fusion, if we decide it's worth the effort to develop, will come later.

Third, you have to move a lot of dirt to get a useful amount of He-3. Estimates are the US alone would need at least 15-20 tons per year for our current electrical generation. At the quoted 0.01 ppm on the moon, that means you need to process 2 billion tons (approx 670 million cubic meters) of regolith every year. In comparison, the giant Three Gorges Dam in China required excavating only 134 million cubic meters of material over a period of 10 years, using thousands of workers and who knows how many tons of heavy equipment.

Additionally, processing the regolith for the helium requires first boiling out all of the gasses by heating the excavated dirt several hundred degrees, then separating the minute fraction of He-3 from all the "waste" gasses. It will be very energy intensive. By my very rough math, every cubic meter of moon you excavate requires on order of 100 kW-hours of heat, so a year's worth of digging would take 47 billion kW-hours. This is about 4% of our current electrical usage, which hints at the scale of the power production facilities that would have to be built on the moon to facilitate this mining...over 5,000 MW of capacity not counting digging and gas segregation energy needs.

Err...that was a typo.

[iamlucky13]

Oops...yes, that should have been 0.035% of the helium on the moon is He-3 and 0.000138% of helium on earth is He-3. Not only did I copy the same number down twice, I misplaced a decimal point.

As I understand it, the difference is because most of the He-3 on the earth is primordial...from the earth's formation. He-3 from the sun also strikes the earth, but is quickly lost again from the upper atmosphere. On the moon, there is primordial He-3 plus new stuff from the sun that gets trapped in the rock since

Not for mining, for launch

[Animats]

The "Helium 3 on the moon" people have it backwards. As someone else pointed out, you have to mine a lot of dirt to get any useful amount of the stuff. On the other hand, deuterium is available at moderate prices. Heavy water costs about $300/Kg. If we ever get fusion to work as a power source (a big if, after half a century of failure), deuterium fusion will work first.

There's some grumbling about deuterium fusion producing radioactive waste products, but it's nowhere near as messy as fission. You get some tritium (which is a useful material; among other things, it decays into ... Helium-3!) and the reactor components may become radioactive, but the isotopes are relatively short-lived; decades, not millennia, of decay time are required. The concrete and steel has already cooled off for many older decommissioned reactors.

Helium-3 fusion is potentially cleaner, though. If we ever get fusion to work, it's the fuel of choice for getting off the earth with fusion power, because you could dump the reaction products into the atmosphere without causing fallout.

So forget about mining the moon to power Earth. Dumb idea. Think about mining helium on Earth to power launch vehicles.

Re:The Grand Canyon is pretty low on observable li

[cheebie]

Where in the world did you get the idea that there is little
visible life in the Grand Canyon?

http://digital-desert.com/grand-canyon/wildlife.html [digital-desert.com]

The moon is a great big dead rock. Moving the pieces of that
rock around won't affect anything in the slightest. Sure, we'll
probably preserve the Apollo sites, and maybe a few particularly
picturesque spots, but the rest of it is a future mining site.

mining the numbers

[Harmonious Botch]

In the equatorial crust, He3 is about 1 part per 100 million. As best I recall, De/He3 fusion is about 5 million times as energetic - per weight - as coal. But on earth, we mine coal if it is 1 part in 20.

Re:

[megaditto]

Getting stuff back from the Moon is relatively cheap. You could even pack the isotope into large artillery shells and fire them towards Earth.

Or maybe even build a giant railgun-style lanucher given all the free iron/silicon minerals and solar energy out there.

Re:running the numbers

[Megane]

You could even pack the isotope into large artillery shells and fire them towards Earth.

Which still doesn't solve the main problem. We don't have Helium 3 fusion yet. And we aren't likely to for years. We'll probably have flying cars and Duke Nukem Forever first.

We haven't even gotten the easiest fusion reactions working yet to the point where they will generate a net gain of electricity.

Re:a thought experiment about a thought experiment

[geekoid]

While not without it's technical challenges, You have a much hirer efficiency with He 3. A little over twis as much energy in a practical environment.
It also has nearly no waste byproducts from the fuel itself. The waste would be from maintenance. Considering the new nuclear designs that are in production, there won't be much waste from maintenance as well.

It's a good fuel.

We need a goal to do from the moon. Getting to the moon, creating these power plants and then...?
There are lots that can be done, but wi