re commercial mining activities on the moon in article apr cs rochester edu dietz cs rochester edu paul dietz writes 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 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 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 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 why paul it s obvious once chlorine chemistry has been banned on earth as is being advocated by some groups ti prices will sharply increase we are of course not allowed to assume any developments in ti processing lunar ti will then be eminently competitive for the trendy jewelry market and certain applications of national importance oops this is sci space wrong rules of debate seriously i d say there is a flaw in gary s analysis in that he assumes an export oriented economy maybe the lunatics will just want some native ti for local use as to why lunar natives are cost effective analysis has shown they will be critical in providing a sheltered manufacturing base technological innovation critical materials and manpower in the war between the allies and central powers in about two hundred years steinn sigurdsson i saw two shooting stars last night lick observatory i wished on them but they were only satellites steinly lick ucsc edu is it wrong to wish on space hardware standard disclaimer i wish i wish i wish you d care b b
