Six Hypotheses for Accelerating the Lunar Economy

TL;DR

This paper proposes six key hypotheses that, if technologically advanced, could significantly accelerate the development of a lunar economy, emphasizing areas like lunar prospecting, manufacturing, and navigation.

Contribution

It identifies six innovative hypotheses for technological breakthroughs that could directly speed up establishing a lunar economy.

Findings

Six hypotheses for lunar economic acceleration identified

Revolutionary tech improvements could enable rapid lunar development

Focus areas include prospecting, manufacturing, and navigation

Abstract

Based on technical work and development conducted under the LunA-10 study, I have identified six hypotheses where, if revolutionary improvements in technology can be made, I assess that a direct acceleration to the fielding of a lunar economy is likely to occur. In this short paper, I explain these six hypotheses, and recommend that these topics be focused on for technical development in the near-future by government and commercial stakeholders. These areas are: (1) Centralized thermal rejection and generation as a service, (2) Widespread orbital lunar prospecting and surveying, (3) Creating large silicon wafers for microsystems on the Moon, (4) Biomanufacturing to accelerate lunar construction, (5) New concepts to increase refinement rates in low gravity, (6) New concepts for Lunar Position, Navigation and Timing.