麻豆传媒

Lunar mining start-up is testing robotic moon landers in advance of a 2015 trial mission. Internet entrepreneur Naveen Jain tells Paul Marks why he founded the firm, and why he鈥檚 leaving the pursuit of asteroids to rival space miners

How did you go from internet businesses to moon mining?
I鈥檇 been looking at how to solve big problems in alternative energy. A lot of the time, innovative ideas don鈥檛 get very far because we just don鈥檛 have the affordable material resources here on Earth. Take platinum, for example, which could possibly be used as a catalyst for fuel cells in hydrogen-fuelled cars. It is so expensive here on Earth. Or helium-3, which you could potentially use in future fusion reactors to create a non-radioactive energy source. We got to wondering if we could harvest such materials from space, and specifically from the moon. There are so many riches in space: why not go and get them?

You mentioned platinum and helium-3, what other resources can you mine on the moon?
All the gold, cobalt, iron, palladium, tungsten and so on mined from Earth鈥檚 crust came from asteroids that hit Earth after its crust cooled. These same types of asteroids bombarded the moon throughout its history, so we can expect the same resources to be available on or near the lunar surface.

Others believe asteroids are the best source for such materials. Why shoot for the moon?
My thinking has always been: why go to an individual asteroid when the moon has been an aggregator of asteroids for billions of years? Look up at the moon on a clear night and all you see are craters where asteroids have struck. And because the moon has no atmosphere, and there is no tectonic activity, all of the asteroid material is still sitting there on the surface. It has already been crushed, so it is all ready to be processed. Moon mining will be mostly open-skimming of surface materials.

鈥淲hy go to an asteroid when the moon has aggregated them for billions of years?鈥�

Additionally, the lunar gravity is of tremendous benefit because it means equipment used on Earth for gold or platinum mining can be modified to work there.

Before you can start mining, you have to get to the moon. Post Apollo, hasn鈥檛 the ability to land on the moon been temporarily lost?
All the technology to get to and land on the moon exists already 鈥� whether it is simply an autonomous lander or a more complex robotic exploration mission. Our spacecraft and its autonomous control and landing software is working already in tests at a NASA facility. Our lander is an entrant in the Google Lunar X Prize. The minute a private company is able to land on the moon, that鈥檒l be a significant event that changes everything 鈥� because that has never been done before.

How much is NASA involved with your venture?
NASA is providing us with the underlying technology. Its Ames Research Center is developing a lunar orbiter called the . We are taking almost the same spacecraft design, miniaturising it, and using that technology for our lander mission in 2015.

What are the milestones after you land?
Once we prove we can land safely we鈥檒l show we can hover over the lunar surface. We may leave a small commemorative payload on the moon and then lift off to lunar orbit. Bringing anything we later mine back from the moon will have three separate, technically challenging elements: getting mined resources into lunar orbit, from there to Earth orbit, and then to Earth鈥檚 surface. The great thing here is that we don鈥檛 have to invent anything new to do all this.

Your lander is set to take off in 2015. If that all goes to plan, when do you expect to deploy your first mining equipment?
We intend to send prospecting sensors on our first mission. Our second mission will involve further prospecting and proof-of-concept for our mining techniques. Then, in our third mission, we will bring back a sample. We expect the first decade to be mostly data gathering and prospecting, and the second decade to begin deployment of industrial-scale resource extraction and processing systems.

What kind of mining equipment will you use?
Early moon-mining robots can be surprisingly small 鈥� we do not need to start with the gargantuan machines we see on Earth. Robots the size of a desk can process an impressive amount of volatile and mineral materials, which will provide the proofs of concept needed for larger investments. NASA鈥檚 , designed to retrieve water on the moon, and its , made to dig soil, are typical examples of scalable systems.

Can you legally ship away chunks of the moon? The United Nations鈥� says .
The moon is like international waters on Earth. No one owns international waters but private companies can use their own resources to find, say, oil or fish. They get to exploit the ocean鈥檚 resources without owning the land around it. We won鈥檛 own the moon but will, similarly, mine some of its resources.

Ten years ago, several companies planned lunar missions that ultimately never happened. What makes these plans more likely to be realised?
SpaceX has blazed a trail into commercial space access. Our investors are excited about the Moon Express business model, reducing the cost of lunar access and enabling a new era of lunar economies. And on the technology side, there have been significant advances in four areas: propulsion, avionics, commercially available launchers and spacecraft design. Today we can create small spacecraft that were not even possible 10 years ago.

Some entrepreneurs are talking about mining the seabed on Earth. Have you considered that?
We are focused on the unlimited resources of space 鈥� to promote a space-faring civilisation, and also to address needs here on Earth. The prudent utilisation of Earth鈥檚 resources should continue, but not at the expense of our fragile biosphere or of the quality of terrestrial life. Earth鈥檚 resources cannot support a multi-world civilisation 鈥� we need to learn to 鈥渓ive off the land鈥� as we move off-planet.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淟ofty ambitions鈥�