Deborah A. Peacock reports that outer space technology and exploration have reached a tipping point, so that mining and mineral processing in outer space is now a certainty and not a dream. Several competing companies worldwide are on the way to building spaceships to land on the Moon and eventually mine the Moon and asteroids for volatiles, rare earth metals and Helium-3.
The Google Lunar XPrize offers a $30 million prize. China has recently landed a spacecraft on the Moon. The European Space Agency, with cooperation from the U.S., has landed a spacecraft, Philae, on a comet. And, Mars One is planning a one-way trip to establish a settlement of humans on Mars.
How and why are the Moon and asteroids and their resources of interest to private space industry companies? Why are the Moon and asteroids viewed as a potential business venue? Space enterprises are actively working toward establishing and operating lunar and asteroid mining locations for resource extraction, resource processing, conversion to salable products and distribution of the products and services in space and to Earth and beyond.
Forty-five years ago, the Apollo manned missions to the Moon returned rocks and regolith to Earth, which were studied and analyzed. What they found was that the Moon contains valuable minerals and resources. These minerals are largely due to meteor and asteroid impacts, which have, over eons, created this mineral-rich regolith. These impacts have occurred on Earth as well, for billions of years, particularly early on in the history of the solar system. However, on Earth, wind, water and vegetation have erased most of these impacts.
On the Moon, in contrast, the only weathering is caused by subsequent impacts and the solar wind.
But also read earlier predictions...
http://www.i2mconsultants.com/downloads/corp/Memoir101-T0fC2016.pdf
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