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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China is taking lunar mining seriously |
| 2014-08-05 |
| While the US chases unicorns, China positions itself as the next energy KSA. Maybe we'll have to bring back whaling? [StratRisks] CHINA’S PLANS TO RETURN TO THE MOON EARLY 2020s. FILLING ONE SHUTTLE’S CARGO BAY WITH HELIUM-3 COULD BRING THE EQUIVALENT ENERGY OF 1BN BARRELS OF OIL BACK TO EARTH. |
| Posted by:Uncle Phester |
| #10 It does if they all can get there. |
| Posted by: gorb 2014-08-05 15:11 |
| #9 You know, I would like to be a fly on the wall when UN tries to shake the Chinese down---because "Don't you know, the Moon belongs to all Personkind?". |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-08-05 15:06 |
| #8 I can never figure out why the guys at LockMart or Boeing or even some AF majors were never ballsy enough to dream up missions for something else and grab some of this loot. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-08-05 13:55 |
| #7 Oh and when there are motherloads for gold.. there are likely the same for other resources... Can I interest you in natural moon sapphires and rubies? (ask the FBI, Interpol and some Moonshot astronauts about that one. Oh and include different isotope mixtures than on earth.) |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-08-05 13:41 |
| #6 spellcheck hell - reusable not resealable. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-08-05 13:37 |
| #5 As to firm. It's not one. Think Seattle and SanFran billionaires and VCs. Now consider New Space is mainly VC and west coast billionaire funded. (Not just SpaceX but Bezos and the inflatable hab guys and a slew of others). Now, yes Elon Musk WANTS to go to Mars but folks will be happy to pay him to service them on the moon and he will be happy to take their money and do so. He can sweeten the deal with resealable rockets and craft. Bottom line still comes into play even when mining a motherload. I expect that is why you don't see the NewSpace firms rushing to go public. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-08-05 13:35 |
| #4 NASA details that came out in NASAspaceflight dot com forum discussion. NASA always wondered why their moon soil analysis came out so low on gold. It's kind of physic "cool". If you remember the electrostatic gold leaves in a vacuum from high school physics demos. The same thing was happening to gold on the moon. The sun would shine on the particles. They would get an electrostatic charge and levitate a small distance above the moon. When it was dark they lost charge and dropped. The same deep dark craters on the moon that trapped water (as sun didn't reach down to vaporize it) trapped the gold and also mercury. The mercury is a pain but the gold is likely under it. When NASA smashed a rocket into one of those craters to look for water - low and behold the plume was full of water, mercury and gold! So the theoretical guys started calculations and for that one crater - 4,000 trillion was the low end result. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-08-05 13:30 |
| #3 3dc, 4,000 trillion? Where in the lord did you read that? If true, I can only hope I'll have money to invest in the firm that gets there first. |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-08-05 11:45 |
| #2 What about strengthening ties with Muslim world? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-08-05 04:20 |
| #1 The crater NASA smashed a rocket into looking for water turned out to be full of water, mercury and gold. Aprox 4,000 trillion dollars of gold. Think about it. After discounting the drop in Gold prices it's still a good bet. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-08-05 02:59 |