Have you ever heard of moon mining?
I was scrolling my news feed this morning, when I came across an article about it. Apparently, Donald Trump has signed an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.
I got upset at first: the whole world is focused on fighting coronavirus and this man is thinking about mining the moon. Then I did some research.
I found out that the Earth satellite is a source of water, oxygen, metals and helium 3, and the aim of the mining project is to find a way to extract those minerals to make rocket fuel and, in a farther future, to make our life on Earth easier.
The project could lift off by 2025 and, despite the intention behind it is to save energy on our planet, it doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
According to another article I found, we shouldn’t worry because,
“mining all that helium won’t cause the Moon to deflate and fall out of the sky. Nor will mining operations have enough of an impact to affect the mass of the Moon in any major way—even if the Moon lost just 1% of its total mass, this still would not significantly affect its orbit, or the gravitational pull on Earth’s oceans that causes high and low tides.”
Now, honestly, this scares me even more. I’m sure the 1% of the moon’s mass is a lot, but would that be enough for humans? You all know how we are: we always want to have more than what we already have and be more than what we already are. I’m sure men won’t stop after reaching that 1%, and it’ll be then that we’ll have a problem.
I’m concerned that we’re gonna mistreat the moon just as we’ve mistreated our planet.
Am I overestimating the issue?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below,
© Brooxy Moon
Brooxy Moon 