Speaking of premises

In the previous post, we discussed why we would need a train on the Moon, arguing that if we manage to get there, we will need transportation systems. We also gave a brief overview of the available transport options and saw that other alternatives face many challenges that trains don’t have when it comes to moving large volumes over medium distances. However, we haven’t yet addressed the bigger question: why are we going to the Moon in the first place? (Yes, the ever-repeated premise.) That’s what we’ll be talking about today.

Before we begin, a quick disclaimer: this post has a stronger personal opinion component than the previous one. That being said, we’ll start by exploring why I believe this topic seems so complicated right now and then move on to why I believe we will eventually go. As always, I’ll be waiting for your thoughts in the comments!

La Pinta, la Niña and the Santa María

You’ve probably noticed that I make a lot of references to the Age of Exploration, but the truth is, it has a lot in common with space exploration. Think about it: Columbus’s three caravels set sail expecting a 4,000-kilometer journey, when in reality, it was 6,500 kilometers. Can you imagine the faces of the roughly 100 men on board, sailing for weeks when many of them didn’t even know how to swim? Compare that to building a space program from scratch—when everything was speculation and new science, and a few astronauts had to be sent on an adventure inside a tiny 4.5 cubic meter module for days, knowing that any piece of space debris could pierce the hull or that a miscalculation could slam them into the Moon. Curiosity to explore, mixed with the fear of the unknown.

You’ve probably heard that an iPhone 15 is about 80,000 times faster and has millions of times more storage than the Apollo 11 lunar module. The same applies to rocket technology: sure, the power of the Saturn V is nothing to scoff at, but modern technologies are advancing rapidly… and they’re much cheaper. To give a rough idea, sending 1 kg of anything from Earth to the Moon cost about 47,000 dollars during the Apollo program, whereas today, it can be done for around 910 dollars (this estimate is based on SpaceX’s projections for the Starship model, though even I admit that figure is very optimistic. link). My point is that going to the Moon today, while still difficult, is nothing compared to what it was back then.

So why aren’t we going? Or, more specifically, why do space agencies struggle so much to land on the Moon? My theory: lack of funding, which is driven by massive indifference. Let me explain. NASA’s 2024 budget was 27.185 billion dollars (link); sounds like a lot, but for comparison, that’s the price of just two Ford-class aircraft carriers (link). In fact, it’s only about 3% of the U.S. military budget for that fiscal year (link). And remember, the U.S. is by far the country that funds its space agency the most.

But as I said, this all comes down to a lack of interest. The Catholic Monarchs were fully invested in colonization because they needed to compete with Portugal for trade routes. The Apollo program is still considered one of the most expensive projects in human history because the Soviets launched the first satellite into space (fun fact: I once read that the Soviet Union sent Sputnik up as a mere scientific curiosity without much strategic thought. It was the U.S. panic that led them to go all-in on the space race). Today, none of these players see space as a critical interest that justifies massive investments, so they don’t prioritize it. Although that may be changing—the Artemis program was partially launched as a response to China’s advancements with its Chang’e program, and private companies led by billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are reshaping the industry. I’m 99% certain that the day someone figures out how to consistently (not just once every 15 years on a scientific probe) bring back valuable metal from space, we’ll see such a stampede of agencies and private companies rushing to conquer space that Star Wars will seem like an understatement. Kind of like AI—five years ago, nobody knew what it was, and now it’s everywhere.

Anyway, back to our comparison. We’re at a point similar to when Columbus discovered America and planted the flag, but that’s where things stopped. Centuries later, with brand-new technologies like the steam engine and radio communications, we’re fully aware of America’s existence, yet we’re hesitant to cross the Atlantic. But wait, you might say—doesn’t that reinforce the idea that there’s no interest in going to the Moon? Well, there actually is interest, as we’ll see later—both in the Moon and space in general. But the key question remains: why? In the 1970s, reaching the Moon was a constant gamble. Once the race was over and the political motivation was gone, why invest billions and risk astronauts’ lives on something with no immediate return? It simply wasn’t worth it. Because let’s be honest: in the early years, exploration and colonization are a financial black hole—a constant drain of resources from the metropolis just to keep the colony afloat. For example—and historians, please correct me if I’m wrong—the true wealth of the Americas that filled the Spanish Crown’s treasury for centuries mostly came from Cerro de Potosí, which wasn’t discovered until the 1540s-1570s (more than 60 years after America was first discovered!). That brings us to how long it takes for a colony to develop. On this topic, I highly recommend a Kurzgesagt video that explains it brilliantly (link), breaking colonization into three distinct phases:

1. A first phase of exploration, where settlements are only temporary.
2. A growth phase, where settlements depend entirely on the metropolis.
3. A maturity phase, where the settlement becomes self-sufficient and capable of generating wealth.

According to this idea, the space race was the exploration phase; but, as we’ve discussed, we never moved beyond it. Now we’re stuck in that phase, and no government is willing to invest the necessary resources to establish bases in a growth phase. Again, this is not due to a lack of capability or technology—it’s simply a lack of funding and political will.

That said, I don’t think it’s the governments’ responsibility either. In the past, maybe it was—when a more or less absolute monarch was interested in expanding their country’s wealth and territory, there were plenty of incentives for colonization. But modern governments’ duty is to provide services and uphold citizens’ rights, not to fund space colonies until they become profitable. They can and should fund scientific projects in space, but not to the extent of prioritizing a lunar city over hospitals or schools. This is why the rise of private entities will be the catalyst that drives this new era of exploration—because they are the ones with both the resources and incentives to finance these new colonization efforts.

I want to wrap up this section with a brief note. A sharp-eyed reader may have noticed that my argument for colonization is largely based on monetary costs, returns, and private sector interests. Obviously, there are other, much less materialistic yet equally valid perspectives—such as technological advancement, space security (think asteroid detection), or even improving Earth-based services like communication and transportation. I firmly believe that space colonization will bring benefits far greater than merely making a few companies rich. However, it will be those very companies that take the first step. And to be honest, I’d be surprised if they did so before being certain that it would yield some kind of economic return.

The space Potosí

Alright, so we have the technology, but building lunar bases isn’t up to governments. If anything, it falls on private companies, which still don’t see a clear way to profit from it—which is why we haven’t seen major advancements in this field. But how would they make money from it? Simple: from the infinite supply of mineral resources in space and the more than generous amount found on the Moon in particular. And not just resources like gold, platinum, or lithium, but also other materials that could be key to future technological revolutions. (At this point, I have to insist that you look up articles on Helium-3, like this one: link. It’s a material that could revolutionize the next generation of clean energy plants through nuclear fusion, and while it’s virtually nonexistent on Earth, the Moon has tons of it). The topic of space mining is quite murky, with many legal loopholes and ambiguous space treaties. But make no mistake—sooner or later, one way or another, it will happen. That said, I won’t get into whether private entities should or shouldn’t profit from extracting space resources. Instead, I’d rather share my perspective on why this would actually benefit us as a species: by reducing the environmental impact of resource extraction and cutting pollution.

I’ll give you three strange names to Google: Chuquicamata (in Chile), Katanga (in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and Pilbara (in Australia). If you haven’t heard of them, don’t worry—I hadn’t either until I read Material World by Ed Conway. (By the way, I highly recommend this book if you’re curious about how material sourcing works). These are just three examples of open-pit mines (or, more accurately, gigantic craters) that have shaped our development over the last few decades.

• Chuquicamata was the largest copper mine, enabling the electrification of the world throughout the 20th century.
• Katanga provided, among countless other things, the uranium used in the Manhattan Project.
• Pilbara has supplied most of the steel needed for urbanizing Asian countries (including China and Japan).

But they also caused enormous social and environmental devastation:

• Chuquicamata is so massive that the waste piles from mining have swallowed up the entire town where the miners once lived (the images are shocking).
• Katanga was, until 1960 (basically yesterday in historical terms), the most blatant example of Belgian colonial exploitation and slave labor.
• Pilbara’s mining industry has destroyed sacred indigenous sites and 40,000-year-old archaeological remains with controlled explosions, all to reach better ore veins.

You probably see where I’m going with this—extracting the critical resources needed for modern civilization has a massive impact, even if it happens thousands of kilometers away from our comfortable living rooms. Many of you will agree that the solution is to apply more sustainable and fair methods to obtain these materials. And you’d be absolutely right. But here’s the question: Is that even possible? And if so, to what extent?

Even if companies like Rio Tinto or Umicore rigorously apply sustainability criteria in all their processes, how can they reconcile an increasingly insatiable demand with an extraction model that “barely generates any impact”?

This question is as old as civilization itself, and the short answer is technological progress—new processes and new technologies that enable more efficient extraction. However, I get the feeling that what is actually prioritized in these cases is improving production at the expense of environmental impact. So that whole idea of “barely generating any impact” is highly relative. A modern example that comes to mind is fracking, but similar cases have existed for centuries. One that stands out to me: in the 16th and 17th centuries, iron was primarily obtained by burning charcoal, a process that was highly inefficient and led to a shortage of trees in southern Wales. The solution? Switching to coal, which was much more efficient and reduced the need for widespread deforestation—but was also much more polluting, link). Another option is changing consumption habits, ultimately leading to a circular economy that recycles all waste. This is already happening—to some extent. In fact, the EU manages to recycle up to 90% of all stainless steel, aluminum, and copper, since these materials are relatively easy to recover and require less energy. But that still doesn’t even come close to covering the necessary demand. For instance, all that recycled copper only satisfies 44% of global demand (link). In other words, even if we recycled all waste, we would still need to extract raw materials. And that’s without even getting into more complex issues, like the destruction of pristine environments for mining, whether in the polar regions (link) or even the deep sea (link).

This is already getting long, but it’s necessary to at least briefly mention pollution. One striking statistic stands out: in 2002, iron and steel refining alone accounted for 6% to 7% of all human-generated CO2 emissions (link). Add in the emissions from other non-ferrous metals, and things get even worse. For reference, in 2016 in the U.S., 80% of metal refining emissions came from iron and steel, while the remaining 20% came from other metals. Link). Ultimately, my point is this: if we continue on our current path, mining will remain just as dirty and invasive as it is essential for growth and development.

As an alternative, space mining still sounds like science fiction, but it represents an infinite source of raw materials. One extreme example is Psyche 16, an object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which contains enough iron and nickel to supply humanity for the next million years (yes, you read that right). A fun yet utterly useless fact: some have speculated that, at current market prices, its value would be around 70,000 times the total worth of the global economy (link). The Moon also has abundant mineral resources (link), many of which contribute to all the environmental issues we’ve been discussing. Now, let’s take it a step further: why not refine those same materials in space? This would prevent the emission of immense amounts of CO2, which is currently fueling global warming. Okay, sure—even in this scenario, we’d still have to consider the pollution caused by rocket launches required to bring those refined materials back to Earth ([which, by the way, is no small issue. Link). Another thought: the regular reentry of many spacecraft into Earth’s atmosphere could generate heat due to friction, potentially affecting our climate. I assume this wouldn’t be a major problem at current levels, but it’s worth noting that this exact phenomenon was what wiped out the dinosaurs. It wasn’t just the impact of the asteroid 66 million years ago, but rather the subsequent reentry of ejected material, which heated the atmosphere to several hundred degrees. That said, even these problems have solutions:

• We could invest in cleaner rocket technologies using less harmful fuels, like oxygen and hydrogen, which produce only water vapor as a byproduct.
• In the very long term, we might even develop sci-fi-level solutions, such as space elevators.

Either way, my main point is this: we have the opportunity to shift a massive source of environmental impact away from Earth. Now, the real ethical debate is whether it’s justifiable to shift this impact to pristine locations like the Moon or asteroids. In other words: is it okay to pollute other celestial bodies if it means protecting Earth? At first glance, these bodies seem completely barren, but maybe that’s just because we don’t understand them well enough yet. Altering them could erase crucial evidence about the origin of the Solar System, or even the origins of life itself. On the other hand, our primary responsibility is to protect Earth, the only place we know of that harbors life. From this perspective, space mining could massively reduce our environmental impact while guaranteeing an unlimited supply of crucial resources for scientific advancement and space exploration. Personally, I lean towards the second option, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Recap

Human development has always impacted the environment. However, in recent decades, this impact has accelerated to alarming levels of pollution. In response to this, and despite the significant technological advancements still required, space mining presents a promising alternative—one that mitigates many of these environmental issues while ensuring an unlimited supply of resources. Of course, this comes at the cost of altering and polluting celestial bodies.

Now that we’ve taken this little detour into the ethics and feasibility of space mining, the next post will finally dive into the lunar train project—starting with a seemingly obvious but surprisingly complex question: Where should we build it, and why there? We’ll also go over some key details about how lunar topography affects the project. See you then!