commercial mining activities on the moon in article apr ke zv uucp gary ke zv uucp gary coffman writes be the site of major commercial activity as far as we know it has no materials we can t get cheaper right here on earth or from asteroids and comets aside from the semi mythic he that might be useful in low grade fusion reactors i don t know what a low grade fusion reactor is but the major problem with he aside from the difficulty in making any fusion reactor work is that its concentration in lunar regolith is just so small on the order of ppb or so on average more in some fractions but still very small massive amounts of regolith would have to be processed this thread reminds me of wingo s claims some time ago about the moon as a source of titanium for use on earth as i recall wingo wasn t content with being assured that titanium at in the earth s crust average would not run out and touted lunar mines even though the market price of ilmenite concentrate these days is around pound this prompted me to look up large potential terrestrial sources on the moon titanium occurs in basalts high ti basalts apollo and have titanium dioxide by weight this is nice but terrestrial continental flood basalts are also typically enriched in titanium they very often have tio frequently have and sometimes even tio again by weight these flood basalts are enormous millions of cubic kilometers scattered all over the world siberia brazil the nw united states ethiopia etc if even of the basalts are tio this is trillions of tons of tio at concentrations only a factor of less than in lunar high ti basalts it is difficult to see how the disadvantages of the moon could be overcome by such a small increase the concentration of the ore never mind the richer but less common terrestrial ores being mined today paul f dietz dietz cs rochester edu
