Do you think that planetary mining is practical?

Question

Seriously, other planets have abundant sources. What if a Lunar mining facility was established and various materials were transported to Earth?

Answer 1

That's a good question - better than some answerer's realize. The answer is that it might not ever be profitable to transport metals to Earth, but it could be profitable to use them on the moon or elsewhere in orbit around the Earth or the moon, or at one of the Earth-moon Lagrangean points, or at the Earth-sun Lagrangean points.

Metal mines on Earth are nearly exhausted of high-grade and medium-grade ores. Processing the remaining low-grade ores for their metal takes a high level of technology. If that technology were ever to fail us, for example because the energy sources they require become depleted, we will have no way to get new metal resources on Earth... ever again.

If a country were to pay the overhead costs of putting metal extraction mines on the moon, or on Mars, or in the asteroid belt, they would at least permit someone (extraterrestrial residents of the solar system) to continue with technology, no matter how primitive things became on Earth.

But it won't happen. Neither corporate greed nor political ambition will pay for this insurance policy against the failure of technology on Earth. So when our energy resources dry up, and our technology fails, there will be no one able to connect with new resource deposits and keep the torch of technical civilization burning. Everything we've done will come undone, and there won't be another chance to try again because the terrestrial deposits of coal, oil, and metals will have been used up.

Answer 2

Dear sir:

I guess i just missed something here...

What was the name of the material on the Moon that is
not available on the Earth? How much of that material
would it take to equal the 50 billion dollars that one trip
to the moon and back might cost? How much does that load of mined material weigh? The last trip to the Moon
yielded a small bag of rocks that weighed about 7 pounds.

No, I do not think mining the Moon or other planets is a cost effective idea.

Answer 3

Necessity is the mother of invention. It won't become practical until it has to be done, like alternate energy sources... aint' gonna happen until the oil runs out.

Answer 4

The transportation costs are prohibitive. Even if there were solid gold bars on the surface of the moon, just waiting to be picked up, it would cost more to get them than they would be worth.

Answer 5

It is for some thieves I had about thirty tons of rare minerals collected from outer space planets some one broke into my locker and sold it all in Phoenix Az.

Answer 6

Planetary mining will one day become practical when you can create robots that self assemble factories and themselves using solar energy and and native resources.

Answer 7

the best reason to mine the moon is to build things in orbit (like a big sunshade/solar collector)

give it a hundred years