I think the dangerous part is political: who get the wealth out of the moon? That's going to be a heated debate.
'CNN - The Chinese government says its patience is running out over a lack of progress in bilateral negotiations with the United States over the sharing of Lunar mineral resources in Sector 4. The U.S. government claims that it legally acquired the mineral rights to the area after being the first nation to activate a fission reactor within the perimeter. The Chinese government, on the other hand, claims to be the rightful owner of the mineral rights since the mineral discovery by the lunar probe Xi Jinping IV. Forces from 45th Marines Regiment, the 10th Space Force, the 3rd Space Infantry Division, and the 8th Space Force are on an elevated readiness level in Sector 4. These forces number approximately 24,000 troops. The People's Liberation Space Army has approximately 13,000 troops on the Moon, with reinforcements on the way, according to a press release by the Chinese State Council. Sector 4 is currently occupied by SpaceX Mining Corporation and the U.S. military forces.'
'Sector 4 contains the richest mineral deposits known to exist on the Moon. Its economic value has been estimated at $634 trillion, and its Helium-3 deposits are a critical input of the manufacturing of quantum conductors, which power everything from personal hovercraft, holo-devices, house appliances, toothbrushes, and personal communication devices and consumer electronics.'
'The United Nations has appealed to both countries to try to keep diplomatic channels open, but both governments have so far ignored its resolutions. In a press conference at the New White House in Princeton, NJ, President Bill Gates III said all options remained on the table. When pressed about whether these options included the deployment of Cordium weapons and neutron bombs against Chinese lunar forces or military operations in the Earth Theater of Operations, President Gates declined to answer.'
Btw, have you seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Is_the_News from 1982? :-)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/elude-vs-allud...
I really enjoy these merriam blogs. They had one about "nonplussed" which gave me a great laugh considering how much that word is miss used.
If China goes to the moon to mine heavy metals - the international community can either get together and sanction China (they won't) - or accept that China's doing it.
If the US does it - the same thing will happen.
I can't really imagine anyone else doing it - but then they have a little less global importance and smaller guns - so maybe there would be sanctions to stop it.
They might notice the rockets going back and forth though.
Natural systems are extremely complex and intertwined in ways that cannot be comprehended in the slightest. The nearsightedness and expediency of the modern engineer is criminal and should be met with the highest level of justice, his ideations with caution and skepticism.
What's disturbing is that skepticism is taboo. The move fast, break things, disrupt everything ethos is considered noble and desirable. Skeptics are "negative" and "holding us back". They're luddite deplorables who want us to remain in the stone age.
We are living with unprecedented abundance. We don't need to take desperate and risky actions because we are not living in desperate times. We don't need to mine the moon. We need to slow down, take stock, and reap what we've already sown.
I notice a lot of people operate on the unexamined assumption that there's life everywhere. This is a decent assumption for the Earth. It does not hold in space. There is no "environment" to mess up on the moon. It is already a radiation hellscape with no air, no water, and no life. It can't be turned into an ecological disaster, it already is one, of a scope beyond anything you can find on Earth. If you literally dumped a million tons of the worst radioactive waste on the moon, it would would not noticeably affect its characteristics.
If you value the ecosystems of Earth, get as much industry off of it as possible, into places where there is no "environment" to mess up.
1. How much we have mined on earth
2. Expectations on how much we expect to mine over time
Did people who started burning coal all those years ago ever think they'd have to worry about climate shift driving their descendants from their homes centuries later because of their actions? Did anyone ever consider that the mass use of disposable plastics would cause these chemicals to persist in our bodies, our water, our food supply? Did any of these people proceed slowly and with caution out of consideration of unknown unknowns?
Unfortunately, no.
It would take in the order of 10^6 years to reduce the mass of the Moon by 0.01% if we mined at the rate at which we mine(example: iron) on Earth.
Having said that, it is not about altering the mass of the moon. It is not even about deorbiting. Both of which are enormously difficult to fuck up by our puny efforts. It would also have very little effect on rotational speed or gravitational field.
But that’s not the point. At all. What is the cost of mining the moon/space mining? What is this metal that we are going to mine at astronomical costs that is alleged to magically make all our lives better and ‘save the oceans’.
I couldn’t find that information the article. I think someone simply wants grant money to build a bigger house or fund their children’s college fund. This duck isn’t flying..not walking..not even limping it’s way to the moon to mine anything.
Do you have any idea how many problems were created by good intentions?
Whether the moon and the earth are part of a natural or unnatural system is irrelevant, so we can omit the word natural for the purposes of this argument.
The moon and its interactions with the earth are part of a system. Some parts of the system are understood. For example, the moon's effect on the earth's tides.
Mao's sparrows were part of a system. Changing this variable, the sparrow population, impacted one variable that impacted another variable, that impacted another variable. Dead sparrows --> more pests --> less grain --> famine.
We can try to predict and speculate all we want, but the only way to know how a system is affected by a variable change is to change the variable and observe the effects. And it can take a very long time before effects reveal themselves, and sometimes they cannot be easily reversed.
When introducing an unprecedented change to a system, all we have is uncertainty, so before we introduce that change, it's important to proceed very slowly, and with caution.
But, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space%3A_1999 said so!1!!
I also have no idea where you come up with this taboo against skepticism. Read the comments on any HN article about a new technology and you'll find skeptics front and center. It's certainly alive and well in engineering.
I agree with you that natural systems are more complex than we can accurately model. We should work on those models.
I work in research, and collaborate with two main teams. One does environmental monitoring and modelling. The other works in extraction (mining) and chemical processing. Guess which one of those collaborations covers my salary? I love working with the environmental team but if that was the only income I'd have to leave a long time ago. If you want engineers to slow down and smell the roses, you'll find most would love to. You'd better have a way to support them though, because if they can't pay for their house while doing it you won't have many takers.
This is a terribly shortsighted view. Environment is what supports us.
When sea levels rise because humanity as a whole has made a series of short sighted decisions with disastrous consequences, our little houses would have helped nail the final mail on coffin of humanity.
It’s not ‘self righteous doomsaying’ to point out we are consuming our planet to extinction and looking for other places to stuff the maw of our human needs.
The solution is to reduce world human population to carrying capacity. As a super apex predator, we need the environment and habitat to survive.
If we polish off resources meant for ecosystems that need to exist to feed us, what we are doing is akin to slicing our fingers for soup because we ran out of carrots.
Want less and no more than you can afford. That’s the idea.
So unless you are willing to give up on the things that allow you to post this very comment on HN, the the building materials most come from somewhere. Better it come from the moon that the amazonia.
The option of not mining at all exist, but the chances that it happen are so low betting on it would be like hoping to win the lottery to pay for your hospital bill.