OPINION: Lunar boom: we’ll soon be mining the moon
"It is a common mistake made by engineers, including myself, to project terrestrial technology on to the moon." Image: isitsharp/iStockphoto As history has repeatedly shown, where there are valuable minerals to be unearthed, adventurous humans will arrive in droves – even if it means battling extreme conditions and risking life and limb. So what will happen when the next great “gold rush” in our history is quite literally out of this world? And what kind of technology would be needed for the mining? After many years of trying, I believe a have a workable answer to the second of these questions – but what about the first? Business analysts may poke fun at the “impossibly” expensive cost of mining nearby celestial bodies such as asteroids, or even the moon, but these pursuits are not beyond the realm of possibility. Returning to the moon for the purposes of mining will require new technologies and new ways...