The moon offers a lot of resources that could determine the development of a near-Earth/moon industrial infrastructure. It is difficult to identify a singular lunar resource that will be sufficiently valuable to drive the lunar mining on its own but the moon possess abundant raw materials that do present an economic interest for private companies and Governments.
Other important advantages for the Moon mining are :
- continuous solar energy with no nights for power and thermal energy,
- gravities from zero to whatever a centrifuge will provide, saving the costs of landing and deploying processing equipment on the Moon's surface,
- the capability to use the same industry in orbit for processing both asteroidal and lunar material (Permanent.com)
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Researchers argue that it is about 15 times cheaper to launch any mass from the moon to LEO than from the Earth.
Lower-cost propellants in space will transform access to and invigorate operations in space.
So another pro for the Moon resources exploitation is tapping water on the moon's surface .
The existing Lunar resources can be used to build the necessary industrial infrastructure for lunar mining. The utilization of robotic, self-sufficient machines to explore the ilmenite and other valuable resources on the Moon could yield the energy needed to power earth’s major cities and give the space agency a boost in the quest for major human exploration of planetary space.
There is a big competition between different privately funded teams and companies for Moon resources exploration, some companies are offering already launches to the moon for US$1.8-million per kilogram (David,
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To the maximum extent possible, the company will use existing and proven technologies in the current phase of development, and in parallel developed key technologies necessary for the next phase. So the lunar base will need landing/launch pads, power plants (perhaps a solar cell array for daytime "peak" energy and a small nuclear power plant for nighttime), base construction equipment, a spare parts and maintenance garage, a central control and communications center, housing for the people on-site, and life support systems, mining equipment (flail and haulers) and a solar