The prospect of mining the moon
is just around the corner.
So what are they so excited about?
Should we be doing it at all?
How would it even work?
Let's explore the unexplored.
The Moon is just a cold, empty rock
with nothing of interest
but a 50-year-old American flag
stuck in the ground, right?
When we arrived there almost a little bit
more than 50 years ago,
it's interesting to hear the recordings.
from the second man on the Moon.
When he stepped out of the lunar lander
and looked around, he said
this is "magnificent desolation".
But our view of the Moon
has changed radically since then,
from 'magnificent desolation'
to a place that is full of important resources
that we may use once we land there.
Just to give you an idea of some of those,
45% of the Moon is oxygen.
It's just that it's tied to the rocks.
These are oxidised rocks, but they can be heated
and you can extract plenty of oxygen.
It's got 21% of silicon
for anything that we do with semiconductors,
iron and titanium, very important elements,
aluminium and calcium and magnesium
and things like this, potassium and phosphorus.
And also you find radioactive materials
like uranium and thorium.
Then there is the possibility of finding water.
Water exists there, and that could be
a total game changer because water not only
is good for humans, but mostly for propellant.
Because water, you can split it into hydrogen
and oxygen, and it can serve as
the most energetic propellant that we know.
This is incredibly exciting and really does
demonstrate how there are more than enough
resources to maintain a permanent base.
We've got metals to develop technology
and oxygen for breathing.
We could use Moon rock to 3D-print habitats
and extract hydrogen to fuel deeper space exploration,
which could be a big game changer.
But there are actually a couple of
really exciting resources that in the future
could make sense to bring back to Earth.
The first is energy from light.
Scientists are trying to look at
how we can create solar factories on the Moon.
Now the problem comes with how we transport
that energy back to Earth,
and one way is using microwaves.
We could beam them through the atmosphere,
through the clouds and collect them
in a receiver here on Earth,
which could give us enough power
to supply the entire world, 24/7.
This is still a long way off
and doesn't make financial sense, yet.
But there is an element on the Moon that
we don't have much of here on Earth,
one that could radically shake up
the energy industry.
One of those elements is called Helium-3.
Helium-3 has been identified as a potential fuel
for what's called fusion energy.
Right now, the way that we obtain
nuclear energy on Earth is by fission.
You hit an atom, you split it,
and in the process you generate energy.
Fusion is totally different.
Here you bring two elements, two particles,
and you fuse them, and in the process of doing that,
which requires a lot of energy,
then a lot of energy is also released.
And it's released directly into electricity.
You don't have to go through heating,
and then steam and then producing electricity.
And even better, the residue is helium,
just helium, the one that again you can use
for inflating balloons.
So it's a non-radioactive waste
that you can get out of that.
So it seems like mining the Moon could
not only serve us in space, but also provide
helpful resources for us back here on Earth.
But that's likely somewhere in the future.
What about today?
There is one resource that countries are
especially interested in,
and that's rare earth elements.
The interest in rare earth elements has exploded
because they are one of the main components
of the communications industry.
Neodymium is used in speakers,
lanthanum in lighting,
yttrium for computer screens
and gadolinium in X-rays.
Despite being called 'rare earth',
they're not actually that rare.
The issue is that they're found
in concentrated areas, which makes them
a highly valuable bargaining chip
for countries that have them within their borders.
One of the countries that dominates
the rare earth industry is China.
Because of this, countries like the US
are starting to ask questions like, well,
what if China decides to restrict access to the US?
Where can we get them from?
The answer is, you guessed it, the Moon.
But would the US just be able to go up
and take what they want?
What are the laws for governing resources in space?
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty states that
no single country can claim ownership
over any celestial body,
but it said little about mining.
And because of this ambiguity,
two schools of thought have developed
as to how we interpret the treaty.
And this has got space lawyers, yeah,
space lawyers, debating the issue.
So far, the international discussion has
centred around two major viewpoints,
and the one argues since the Moon belongs to
everyone, it means that the resources in the Moon,
in the Moon's subsurface,
whether it's water or iron or gold or platinum,
belongs to everyone as well,
and you can't allow a single state to say,
OK, I'm going there,
or I allow my private sector to go there
and mine it for their own commercial profit.
That's the one, the one interpretation.
The other interpretation says, well,
it's a global commons, and just like the high seas,
once you are there and you do something there,
part of the freedom of the high seas/outer space,
you can own it and sell it and make money with it.
The comparison is then with the fish in the high seas.
So these are the two opposing views.
We still have no legal agreements
amongst all the states that this is
the appropriate interpretation,
so we still have a ways to go
before all the states are on the same page.
Because of this ambiguity, countries are now
taking legal matters into their own hands.
In 2015, the United States took the first step
by saying that any company that sets up
operations in the United States will have
the right to access, extract, utilise and even
sell resources from the Moon.
Not own it, but the right to access and utilise it.
The following year, Luxembourg became
the first European country to establish
a legal framework around space resources.
After that, the United Arab Emirates joined in
and most recently in 2020, so did Japan.
So you're seeing how these countries
are moving independently while trying to abide
by the United Nations treaty.
But, while finding ways to extract resources.
But even if we can mine the Moon, should we?
That is a concern.
Are we going to mine the Moon so much
that we're going to start changing the face
that we see there?
Are we extracting so many resources that
it may affect its orbit or its physical parameters?
Some of those concerns are understandable,
but some of them shouldn't be of much concern.
But in terms of causing major damage on the Moon,
I think that's not going to happen,
at least in many, many decades or maybe centuries.
But we should start planning ahead
on how to do it so that it doesn't
cause a problem in the long run.
So should we mine the Moon?
Well, if you have any interest in travelling
to the Moon or beyond or potentially solving
our energy crisis, then the answer may be yes,
With the caveat that it's done legally
and with no irreparable damage.
Over the next few decades, the picture is going
to start to get clearer as the Moon gets busier
and we find out exactly what is there
and how much of it there is.
When that happens, that's when things
are going to get interesting,
and hopefully we'll be able to find a way
to share resources and avoid conflict
here on Earth.