Esa Nummi reports that The Tech Times recently reported that Moon Express, a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company partnered with NASA, is one step closer to mining the Moon. The California-based company plans to send its robotic lander, dubbed MX-1, to the Moon by next year, and has already put into test a prototype at the Kennedy Space Center. Moon Express conducted the tests with the aid of NASA engineers as part of a lunar initiative known as Lunar Catalyst. Catalyst was designed to encourage new commercial capabilities to reach out and tap into the resources of the moon.
NASA believes that commercial lunar transportation capabilities could support science and exploration objectives, such as sample returns, geophysical network deployment, technology demonstrations and resource prospecting. Resource prospecting on the Moon could be very beneficial to those here on earth. Moon Express co-founder Naveen Jain, believes those resources can help address our planets dwindling resource challenge. According to Jain, The Moon has vast stores of riches that include the likes of cobalt, iron, gold, palladium, tungsten, platinum and helium-3, which could be used in fusion reactors to provide nuclear power, minus the radioactive waste. While the first mission of the company lander is a one-way trip, which means that MX-1 will not be traveling back to Earth the second and third missions could already involve bringing precious minerals, metals and moon rocks back to Earth.
Of course there are a bit more challenges to mining the moon than mining the Earth. The issue of transporting huge pieces of mining equipment is one of the first tests that come to mind.
Also see: http://i2mconsultants.com/downloads/corp/Memoir101-CHAPTER09Rev.pdf
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