What could possibly be so valuable on the moon that you’d pay $50 million to go there?
Hey guys, Emily here for DNews.
During the Apollo days, it cost about $10 billion current-day dollars to send astronauts
on a round trip flight to the moon.
Back then, we made the trip for things like national pride, to prove that our missiles
were bigger than Russia’s, and of course ‘not because it was easy, but because it
was hard.’
Today we have a new space race to the moon.
There are officially 5 teams left in the $30 Million Google Lunar X-PRIZE.
This is an international competition to see which private company can reach the moon first,
move 500 meters across its surface and transmit high definition video and images back to Earth.
But the really exciting part is what happens after the competition.
With resources like water ice and Helium-3, the moon is ripe for mining with a potential
value of hundreds of trillions of dollars.
Based on information gathered from orbiting satellites, NASA estimates that there’s
over 600 metric tons of water ice located in craters on the North Pole of the Moon.
This may not seem that exciting - water’s not that rare or expensive, right?
Until you realize that water can be converted into rocket fuel - something that is crazy
expensive.
This means we could effectively create a gas station on the moon.
Water, H2O, can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be converted into
rocket fuel.
Many of our rockets today use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to power their engines - including
our old friend the space shuttle.
In fact, this type of rocket fuel is the most fuel efficient of any known chemical rocket
propellant.
If we were able to do this on the moon, then, anyone who wanted to send a spacecraft on
a particularly long mission would stop at this lunar gas station and pay you to refuel
before continuing their journey into deep space.
We all know how wealthy and powerful the oil and gas companies are here on Earth - imagine
if you had a monopoly on rocket fuel in the entire solar system!
But there’s more than just water.
Helium 3 is a special isotope of Helium that’s rare on the Earth but abundant on the Moon.
This is appealing because Helium 3 could be used to create clean nuclear energy via nuclear
fusion without all the radioactive byproducts that result from traditional nuclear fission.
Yay!
… The downside is that scientists haven’t quite worked out all the kinks of nuclear
fusion just yet.
But, theoretically if they did and someone could extract all of the Helium 3 from the
lunar soil, there would be enough to power the entire Earth for thousands of years.
Ya.
So maybe it’s no wonder why companies like Moon Express - the only U.S. company left
in the competition - has been able to secure a total of $45 million in private investment,
fully funding their first flight to the moon.
In fact, the most unique aspect of this competition is that unlike the Apollo days - this race
to the moon isn’t government sponsored.
X-Prize requires 90% of any funding to come from private sources.
The goal of that requirement?
To encourage profit-driven business plans based on lunar activities.
Afterall, what Venture Capitalist would invest in a company with no promise of financial
return?
The challenge is, going to the moon is incredibly expensive and very difficult.
It’s no wonder why only 3 groups in history - the government superpowers of the United
States, the Soviet Union, and China - have successfully soft-landed on the moon — in
other words, landed without crashing.
This means that whoever places first in the X-PRIZE competition won’t simply win a grand
prize, but they’ll be the first private company and the 4th entity in history to soft-land
on the moon.
Sure, they’ll need many more flights dedicated to prospecting and perfecting their lunar
mining skills - but if there’s a chance they could create the go-to gas station in
the solar system or even solve the planet’s energy needs - it may just be all worth it
in the end.
So if one of these companies finds an easier way to get to the moon, could people actually
live up there?
We talk about whether we could make a livable atmosphere on the moon in this video, here.
What do you think?
Who's going to be the next person to make it to the moon?
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