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Privatized Moon Mining Appeals To Entrepreneurs
The Space Resources Roundtable, held last month at the Colorado School of Mines, featured 250 participants who all spoke on lunar economic models.
(Depiction of ICON building lunar roads, habitats and landing pads)
The key glue that anchors future moon use is labeled in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU. ISRU involves the extraction of oxygen, water and other available materials for cranking out rocket fuel and to "gas up" life-support systems. Then there's pulling out metals on the moon, say to fabricate lunar housing, landing pads, along with other structures and products.Down here on Earth, uses of simulants that imitate lunar regolith have their limitations for comprehensive testing of off-world machinery. On the moon there are electrostatic charges, radiation, lots of dust, and a scant vacuum. And don't forget to toss in one-sixth gravity for good measure.
Science fiction writers have long imagined mining the moon. See these references for lunar ice mining from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein, lunar mining from Brigands of the Moon (1930) by Ray Cummings and building with lunar materials from The Moon is Hell (19950) by John W. Campbell.
Austrian rocket pioneer and writer Max Valier wrote compellingly about this idea in his wonderful story A Daring Trip To Mars, published in 1931 in Wonder Stories:
The engineer had judged correctly for the ground on which the space ship had landed consisted of ice..."...Now be quick, get out the solar power apparatus and send it down to us from the air-lock by the crane."
A huge parabolic mirror built of light sheet silver collected the intense heat of the sun and first melted a small amount of ice in a closed container. The water thus formed - which cannot exist free on the airless moon - was heated to boiling, and provided the steam for a little turbine...
(Read more about the solar power apparatus)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/19/2023)
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1946.
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NASA Moonbase Update
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
Neuralink Will Allow Humans To Communicate With ... Animals?
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
Special Lights For Driverless Cars!
'That light is actually the Anamorphic Equalizer...'
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
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'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
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'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'Maybe The Woman Of Your Life Is Still Under Production'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
Epirus High-Power Microwave Defeats Drones
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
Cloud Of Space Rubbish From China's Long March Rocket
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
Biomimetic Tendons From Rochu Robotics
'... the curious parallelism to animal motions.'
Living Human Neuron Biological Compute Rack
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
Martha Stewart Approves Ojai 'Living Room On Wheels'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
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'...a synthetic which air-friction would erode.'
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'The sky is the limit' just got higher.
