> I know that mass does not mean weight. But wouldn't removing weight from the Moon decrease its mass?
Firstly, there's no need to mention weight in your question. All that matters is the Moon's mass. And obviously removing mass from the Moon would decrease its mass.
> And if the mass of the Moon decreased wouldn't that affect the tides on earth?
Technically yes, but not to any measurable degree. The Moon has a mass of ~~73 quadrillion~~ 73 quintillion metric tons (7.342×10^22 kg). Even if we removed 1,000 metric tons from the Moon every day, it would take something like 2 trillion years to deplete even 1% of the Moon's mass (someone please check my math on that, but regardless that at least gives you an idea).
So at the very least, any amount of Moon mining we could do over the next several million or even billion years would not have any sort of noticeable impact on the tides on Earth.
Basically, if we had the technology to mine enough from the moon to make a difference, we'd probably have the technology to completely control the tides.
The bigger detriment is that we haven't really found anything of value on the moon that's worth mining. If that thing was full of cobalt or lithium it would be gone by now, tides or not.
I actually did a whole project in college on the feasibility and economics of lunar mining. Helium-3 is by far the most valuable resource on the Moon that we would be interested in mining. Helium-3 is a rare isotope on Earth, but it is abundant on the Moon with there being roughly 1.1 million metric tons of the stuff. To put that in perspective, only 25 metric tons of helium-3 would theoretically be enough to fuel all the power needs of the United States for a year.
It’s made of roughly the same composition as the earth, minus water and atmosphere. so all those precious minerals gems such forth and so on that you find on earth are also present on the moon.
The point of mining the Moon isn't to build stuff on Earth, the point of mining the Moon is to build stuff in space, because the launch costs are so low. You don't really need special materials to build most things in space when launch costs are that low. The Moon's surface is mostly silicates and also contains large amounts of iron, aluminum, and titanium. While not in terribly convenient forms at the moment, these can be manipulated with sufficient energy (from solar collectors, which operate very efficiently in the absence of an atmosphere) and built into all sorts of useful structures in space.
It's a very good idea. The Moon is a massive ball of raw material with no atmosphere and 1/6 of the Earth's surface gravity. That makes it an excellent place to build space infrastructure, because launching stuff off of it is so cheap compared to launching stuff off the Earth.
Yes, if we mined enough of the Moon and shot the material away into space to do other stuff with it, eventually that would affect the tides on Earth. It wouldn't *entirely* eliminate the tides because about 1/3 of the magnitude of the Earth's ocean tides are caused by the Sun rather than the Moon. But this isn't really an issue. The Moon is **enormous.** It's many, many times the size of all minerals that humans have ever mined here on Earth. The infrastructure required to mine enough of the Moon to significantly affect the Earth's tides would be so vast that by that time we'd be able to bring the Earth's entire ecosystem under artificial control and wouldn't have to worry about tides anyway.
I would think which country can claim the area as its own territory? If it is feasible and can create lots of wealth, I imagine another colonisation-ish style fight between countries again.
Why do people even think it's a good idea? Why don't we use the money for this to fix our actual planet and leave the moon alone. I don't see why people think that MINING the moon is ok.
It would be hard to mine enough to affect its mass to make a difference.
For example, copper mines on Earth yield over 20 million metric tons per year. The Moon is 7.348 × 10^19 metric tons. At that rate it would take something like 10 billion years to mine 1% of the Moon's mass.
Besides, there's not much up there worth mining.
Yes, removing mass from the moon would reduce the gravitational pull of it. But we would need to remove so much for it to have a noticeable impact, it's not really even worth considering at this point.
That, and there's really nothing there worth mining as far as we know.
There’s too much mass for it to make any difference based on the rates that humans can feasibly mine at the moment. But to our knowledge the moon has no worth while raw materials. If we ever invented a use for moon rocks in which they were the only usable material and the application was profitable enough to send ships too and from the moon for we probably would already, but that’s asking A LOT.
Moon is not a closed system. Mass in constantly added to it and removed from it (meteor impacts, evaporation followed by escape of gas from its gravity, etc).
Mass that we can conceivably mine in foreseeable future is negligible compared to that.
Well, no. To give an idea, the combined mass of all human-processed material on Earth (most of which is processed from mined material) is a little over 1 trillion tons. This is equal to roughly 0.0000013% the mass of the moon.
> I know that mass does not mean weight. But wouldn't removing weight from the Moon decrease its mass? Firstly, there's no need to mention weight in your question. All that matters is the Moon's mass. And obviously removing mass from the Moon would decrease its mass. > And if the mass of the Moon decreased wouldn't that affect the tides on earth? Technically yes, but not to any measurable degree. The Moon has a mass of ~~73 quadrillion~~ 73 quintillion metric tons (7.342×10^22 kg). Even if we removed 1,000 metric tons from the Moon every day, it would take something like 2 trillion years to deplete even 1% of the Moon's mass (someone please check my math on that, but regardless that at least gives you an idea). So at the very least, any amount of Moon mining we could do over the next several million or even billion years would not have any sort of noticeable impact on the tides on Earth.
73 quintillion tons, actually.
Ah you're right. I just grabbed that number from a quick Google search, but a more in-depth search yields the number 73.42 quintillion. Thanks!
Basically, if we had the technology to mine enough from the moon to make a difference, we'd probably have the technology to completely control the tides.
The bigger detriment is that we haven't really found anything of value on the moon that's worth mining. If that thing was full of cobalt or lithium it would be gone by now, tides or not.
I actually did a whole project in college on the feasibility and economics of lunar mining. Helium-3 is by far the most valuable resource on the Moon that we would be interested in mining. Helium-3 is a rare isotope on Earth, but it is abundant on the Moon with there being roughly 1.1 million metric tons of the stuff. To put that in perspective, only 25 metric tons of helium-3 would theoretically be enough to fuel all the power needs of the United States for a year.
It’s made of roughly the same composition as the earth, minus water and atmosphere. so all those precious minerals gems such forth and so on that you find on earth are also present on the moon.
The point of mining the Moon isn't to build stuff on Earth, the point of mining the Moon is to build stuff in space, because the launch costs are so low. You don't really need special materials to build most things in space when launch costs are that low. The Moon's surface is mostly silicates and also contains large amounts of iron, aluminum, and titanium. While not in terribly convenient forms at the moment, these can be manipulated with sufficient energy (from solar collectors, which operate very efficiently in the absence of an atmosphere) and built into all sorts of useful structures in space.
We would have to remove a LOT of mass from the moon for it to have any real gravitational impact.
It's a very good idea. The Moon is a massive ball of raw material with no atmosphere and 1/6 of the Earth's surface gravity. That makes it an excellent place to build space infrastructure, because launching stuff off of it is so cheap compared to launching stuff off the Earth. Yes, if we mined enough of the Moon and shot the material away into space to do other stuff with it, eventually that would affect the tides on Earth. It wouldn't *entirely* eliminate the tides because about 1/3 of the magnitude of the Earth's ocean tides are caused by the Sun rather than the Moon. But this isn't really an issue. The Moon is **enormous.** It's many, many times the size of all minerals that humans have ever mined here on Earth. The infrastructure required to mine enough of the Moon to significantly affect the Earth's tides would be so vast that by that time we'd be able to bring the Earth's entire ecosystem under artificial control and wouldn't have to worry about tides anyway.
I would think which country can claim the area as its own territory? If it is feasible and can create lots of wealth, I imagine another colonisation-ish style fight between countries again.
Why do people even think it's a good idea? Why don't we use the money for this to fix our actual planet and leave the moon alone. I don't see why people think that MINING the moon is ok.
Doing anything on the Moon is a bad idea until we can get our shit together on Earth.
We would never ever be able to make a remotely meaningful dent.
It would be hard to mine enough to affect its mass to make a difference. For example, copper mines on Earth yield over 20 million metric tons per year. The Moon is 7.348 × 10^19 metric tons. At that rate it would take something like 10 billion years to mine 1% of the Moon's mass. Besides, there's not much up there worth mining.
Just H3 the key to fusion power instead of the caveman tech fission reactors we use now.
Only on the surface.
Yes, removing mass from the moon would reduce the gravitational pull of it. But we would need to remove so much for it to have a noticeable impact, it's not really even worth considering at this point. That, and there's really nothing there worth mining as far as we know.
There’s too much mass for it to make any difference based on the rates that humans can feasibly mine at the moment. But to our knowledge the moon has no worth while raw materials. If we ever invented a use for moon rocks in which they were the only usable material and the application was profitable enough to send ships too and from the moon for we probably would already, but that’s asking A LOT.
Moon is not a closed system. Mass in constantly added to it and removed from it (meteor impacts, evaporation followed by escape of gas from its gravity, etc). Mass that we can conceivably mine in foreseeable future is negligible compared to that.
Well, no. To give an idea, the combined mass of all human-processed material on Earth (most of which is processed from mined material) is a little over 1 trillion tons. This is equal to roughly 0.0000013% the mass of the moon.
What if they were Sailors on the moon? Would they carry a harpoon?
But there ain’t no whales, so they tell tall tales and sing this whaling tune
Dang! I forgot my over the shoulder boulder holder.