Lunar Resources: A Review

TL;DR

This review discusses the current state of lunar resources, emphasizing their potential for supporting lunar activities and future space-based industries, while highlighting the need for continued exploration and realistic assessments of resource value.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of lunar resources, evaluates their economic potential, and underscores the importance of ongoing exploration for future space economy development.

Findings

Lunar resources are abundant but not sufficiently valuable individually for a dedicated industry.

Lunar materials can support human activities and future industrial capabilities.

Gradual access to lunar resources may help develop a space-based economy.

Abstract

There is growing interest in the possibility that the resource base of the Solar System might in future be used to supplement the economic resources of our own planet. As the Earth's closest celestial neighbour, the Moon is sure to feature prominently in these developments. In this paper I review what is currently known about economically exploitable resources on the Moon, while also stressing the need for continued lunar exploration. I find that, although it is difficult to identify any single lunar resource that will be sufficiently valuable to drive a lunar resource extraction industry on its own (notwithstanding claims sometimes made for the 3He isotope, which I find to be exaggerated), the Moon nevertheless does possess abundant raw materials that are of potential economic interest. These are relevant to a hierarchy of future applications, beginning with the use of lunar materials to facilitate human activities on the Moon itself, and progressing to the use of lunar resources to underpin a future industrial capability within the Earth-Moon system. In this way, gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help 'bootstrap' a space-based economy from which the world economy, and possibly also the world's environment, will ultimately benefit.