There are some extremely valuable resources on the moon that could support such a lunar economy. Helium-3 is one moon resource that is rare on earth but much more abundant on the lunar surface and could potentially be cheaper to mine from the moon. Helium-3 is a very attractive fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors.
Lunar resources will be important for common lithophile elements such as aluminum, titanium, and calcium. And the Moon may also have ores of rare, incompatible, lithophile elements such as beryllium, lithium, zirconium, niobium, tantalum, and so forth.
However, even though there are many precious metals and minerals on the moon, the most valuable resource is Helium-3 since it is rare on earth, but is very common on the moon. The price of Helium-3 could be even as much as $2000 per Liter, or $59.15 per ounce respectively.
The brightest and largest object in our night sky, the Moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate. It also causes tides, creating a rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years.
To our knowledge, the Moon has considerably less gold than the Earth does. This is only partly due to its smaller size, as somehow the Earth has collected far more gold than the Moon did. Even so, there is speculation that a significant amount of gold could be lying in wait under the lunar surface.
Helium-3 is one moon resource that is rare on earth but much more abundant on the lunar surface and could potentially be cheaper to mine from the moon. Helium-3 is a very attractive fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors. China, Russia and India have all expressed interest in sourcing lunar Helium-3 for use on earth.
Scientists have found evidence of cubic zirconia in Moon rocks, showing that the universe not only holds diamonds, but its own fire-safe knock-offs. Space could be absolutely shimmering with precious stones, though Mao emphasizes that they probably aren't quite like the ones in earthlings' jewelry boxes.
The gravitational pull of the moon moderates Earth's wobble, keeping the climate stable. That's a boon for life. Without it, we could have enormous climate mood swings over billions of years, with different areas getting extraordinarily hot and then plunging into long ice ages.
It is the pull of the Moon's gravity on the Earth that holds our planet in place. Without the Moon stabilising our tilt, it is possible that the Earth's tilt could vary wildly. It would move from no tilt (which means no seasons) to a large tilt (which means extreme weather and even ice ages).
Availability on the Moon
Lithium is available in the lunar regolith. Average concentration is low at 10 ppm.
The crystal is transparent and roughly the width of a single human hair. It formed in a region of the moon that was volcanically active around 1.2 billion years ago. One of the primary ingredients found in this crystal is helium-3, which scientists believe may provide a stable fuel source for nuclear fusion reactors.
1. Rhodium. Rhodium is a rare, silvery-white metal that belongs to the platinum group of elements. It has a high melting point, excellent resistance to corrosion, and is known for its catalytic properties.
Painite : Not just the rarest gemstone, but also the rarest mineral on earth, Painite holds the Guinness World Record for it. After its discovery in the year 1951, there existed only 2 specimens of Painite for the next many decades. By the year 2004, there were less than 2 dozens known gemstones.
In addition, lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, tungsten, and gold have been found in trace amounts.
These titanium-rich areas on the moon puzzled the researchers. The highest abundance of titanium in similar rocks on Earth hovers around 1 percent or less, the scientists explained. The new map shows that these troves of titanium on the moon range from about 1 percent to a little more than 10 percent.
The practical benefits of moon mining are enormous. The moon is richly endowed with rare earth metals. These elements, like Yttrium, Lanthanum and Scandium may sound obscure, but they're essential for modern technology. Smartphones, X-rays and televisions all require rare earth metals to function.
If the moon disappeared, the oceans would have smaller tides. This in turn will affect water organisms like crabs, mussels, starfishes and snails as they depend on the tides for survival. This impact on the coastal ecosystem will lead to an imbalance in the food chain and eventually cause mass extinctions.
It wouldn't be good. At the Equator, the earth's rotational motion is at its fastest, about a thousand miles an hour. If that motion suddenly stopped, the momentum would send things flying eastward. Moving rocks and oceans would trigger earthquakes and tsunamis.
With no sunlight, photosynthesis would stop, but that would only kill some of the plants—there are some larger trees that can survive for decades without it. Within a few days, however, the temperatures would begin to drop, and any humans left on the planet's surface would die soon after.
This means that the earth would not slow, which then means that the hours of our days would change. Suddenly, without the moon, our days would last between 6 and 12 hours, rather than the 24 hours we experience now.
Before Earth and the Moon, there were proto-Earth and Theia (a roughly Mars-sized planet). The giant-impact model suggests that at some point in Earth's very early history, these two bodies collided.
Unlike most rocky, icy asteroids, the Psyche asteroid—located between Mars and Jupiter—contains a motherlode of metal, including gold, iron, and nickel.
Satellite imaging has shown that the top 10 centimetres of regolith (moon soil) at the south pole of the moon appear to hold about 100 times more gold than the richest mines on earth.