| haxxiy said: Too bad any kilogram of ore brought from the moon probably costs on the high millions. Hell, it isn't profitable to mine from the deep sea, or even to extract certain precious metals from the northern permafrost. But props to them for being slightly more believable than Mars One, and earning a Google Prize too, specially after being founded by three entrepreneurs known for working on those kickstarted high investment, zero return companies. I didn't even laugh - like JEMC said, they even have a chance of launching a small satellite into low orbit in a few years. |
Actually... our current costs of space-transportation is for bringing stuff from earth into space. As the moon has a lot less gravitational pull, it should cost a lot of energy less to get stuff leave the moon. Landing on earth is much simpler, as the atmosphere is slowing down the craft. As a mining operation brings much more from the moon to the earth than the other way, the cost should be no longer in the high millions.
Still, nobody really has done something like that so far and the initial cost to buold up operation should be incredible. But let's see how this idea turned out in 25 years (that seems a realistic timeframe to get operational).
