The US and China have ambitious projects to build permanent bases on the lunar surface; where they go, business is following. They all want to share in the promised, new lunar economy. As we explain, there are growing opportunities in science, communications, human colonies, transportation and eventually tourism.
We can also simulate a Mars mission with the Moon. So, we’re going to have a lunar orbiting station around the Moon called Gateway. The first port of call in this new lunar rush is going to be the Moon’s South Pole.
Communications is key and Moonlight is the name given to the program led by the European Space Agency, which plans to offer connectivity on the Moon. It’s an infrastructure project giving the same facility as internet and Galileo would give to humans on Earth. Setting up a communications network is also expected to accelerate the development of commercial services on the Moon.
We will have to build the landing pads, the power stations, and communications networks needed for these permanent bases.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, supported by billions of dollars in Nasa contracts, has revolutionized the cost of accessing space with its reusable Falcon 9 rocket. Its success has spawned a host of copycat start-ups with over 100 companies around the world aiming to carry satellites into low-Earth orbit. Now, Musk’s gigantic Starship promises to do the same for transport to the Moon.
SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are developing landers to carry astronauts to the Moon’s surface as part of Nasa’s Artemis program.
Mining is another industry which many believe offers huge potential in a future lunar economy. Scientists think the Moon may hold large deposits of helium-3, which is crucial for nuclear fusion. There may be money to be made in extracting this for use back on Earth.
We will need machine-intelligent robots built on the same common platform, consisting of different species of robots that do excavation, extraction, surveying, processing, transportation, collection, and literally, a myriad of other tasks.
There will need to be resource utilization missions, trying to find water, trying to find oxygen, trying to find hydrogen, trying to find other minerals and materials that will be able to make air for astronauts to breathe. Water could provide our astronauts with air and water. But then when we split that water into hydrogen and oxygen, it makes a fantastic in-space propellant.
Nuclear is going to be critical. If we’re really going to live there and work there and do science there sustainably, you need a lot more power to execute more missions. So we think that’s very important.
We will need building pods inside which we recreate climate to grow plants. It’s like a very advanced greenhouse. You can assemble it anywhere. It’s composed of a base inside which you find all the hardware, so the atmospheric, the hydraulic system, that help recreating the climate inside.
In summary, there are a myriad of business opportunities associated with the lunar economy and on of the key enablers will be mineral resources; both on earth and the moon.
