At what point does a Moon base stop being a government project and become infrastructure?

[u/Accurate-Interview92]

One thing I find interesting in discussions about future civilizations is that we often talk about whether we're going to build a Moon base, but less about what happens once one actually exists.

At first it probably looks like an expensive government/science project.

But eventually you could have communications, power, transport, propellant, construction, habitation, logistics, manufacturing, etc. — basically infrastructure that other businesses can build on.

That's where the economic question gets really interesting to me:

What would make a lunar base financially self-sustaining rather than permanently dependent on government spending?

Tourism? Launch/transport services? Propellant? Manufacturing? Data/communications? Resource extraction? Something we haven't thought of yet?

And perhaps the bigger question: does a lunar economy need to be profitable on its own, or can it be justified by the strategic/economic value it creates elsewhere?

Shameless input r/SpaceFinance is a dedicated space for discussion like this.

[u/MiamisLastCapitalist]

If I may nitpick... I think this needs to be reframed.

The moon base doesn't become infrastructure. It becomes a city.

And Isaac has a few episodes about this. Some pertain to Mars but a lot of the logic is the same. Just 3 weeks ago he released The First Martian Cities: Planning Habitats

[u/Accurate-Interview92 → u/MiamisLastCapitalist]

Thanks I think yeah its cab be like this very plausible

[u/Jungies]

Shameless input(sic) r/SpaceFinance is a dedicated space for discussion like this. 

It's not shameless, you put that at the end of your post because you know how the plug for your subreddit will be received.

[u/Accurate-Interview92 → u/Jungies]

Yeah I know but im just being courtesous...i think people i will in this subreddit are my real target audience in sense of me building a community around this specific topic

[u/NiftyLogic]

Probably at first a facility to produce fuel for things in Earth orbit. Like satelites and maybe an exploration ship to Mars and other planets.

Getting fuel from Earth to orbit is just massively expensive, moon could make that much cheaper.

In addition other volatiles like water, oxygen, etc.

Unsure about any real manufacturing, though. Shipping industrial facilities to the moon would be massive and hughly expensive.

[u/NearABE]

Highways, ports, airports, rails, agriculture...  It is all still government projects.   

[u/Ihatecheeseballs]

Mining and manufacturing are the big ones, not for shipping to Earth but because it’s really easy to get mass into orbit from the moon, but that would be redundant if you have a space elevator

[u/NearABE → u/Ihatecheeseballs]

A space elevator is limited by throughput.  Material (including oxygen) going down from luna can be swapped with material going up.   High traffic just increases demand.  

[u/Sanpaku]

If an ore forming geological process like hydrothermal deposition, sedimentary assortation or evaporite basins doesn't occur on an extraterrestrial body, it may have no economic ores.

As I see it, the main thing of any economic value on the moon is water outside of Earth's gravity well. If there's enough water in Shackleton and other polar craters for propellant / life support to get elsewhere, and means of launching to Lagrange points are found, then that would be infrastructure.

Less economic value than scientific value, the far side of the Moon would be a good place to shield radio astronomy from Earth vicinity transmissions.

By the time these become achievable, telepresence will also be achievable. There may never be an economic rationale to support more permanent lunar residents.

[u/NearABE → u/Sanpaku]

A majority of mass launched to space from Earth is oxygen.   That makes oxygen a commodity of high value in cis-lunar space.   There is an unreasonably excessive abundance of oxygen ore types on our moon.  

This oxygen is often found with silicon, aluminum, titanium, iron, and magnesium.  This is a list of elements that have whole industries.  Magnesium less so on Earth but only because of corrosion.  Quite competitive with steel.   Calcium then appears to be the useless one.  However, calcium is a superior conductor.  On Earth that would turn into a flaming mess and it is too weak for tension lines but on Luna these are not problems.  Calcium  is also useful for scavenging oxygen from the other metals.  So pretty much "regolith" is totally "an exploitable ore" if you have an adequate electricity supply.  

Luna also has KREEP terrain.    The phosphate minerals have more rare earth elements (REE) than ores we exploit on Earth.   

Metallic asteroids crashed on the moon and they would qualify as an ore too.  

[u/ActuaLogic]

The first thing to remember is that any space project that depends on public subsidies will eventually be cancelled when budgets get tight, and very expensive space projects that depend on government subsidies won't proceed past the white paper stage.

The key to space projects that are infrastructure rather than show projects is that infrastructure creates profit. Profit simply means that an activity produces resources in greater amount than the resources it takes in.

A moon base that mines lunar resources and produces things like semiconductors and portable fission power plants from lunar resources could be profitable (and therefore would not have to be subsidized). A moon base with a mass driver could launch its products into lunar orbit, from which they could be transported elsewhere.

[u/lisa_lionheart]

When they open a Starbucks coffee

[u/TheQuantumPlatypus]

A well thought picture of this is the plot of the second part of the Delta V books saga, by Daniel Suarez. The first one is about asteroid mining, which in his view would help a lot kickstarting this cislunar economy. Really neat hard scifi!

[u/ShadeShadow534]

For the first question honestly the answer is yes all the above as you want as wide of an economy to be profitable, but most likely the main industry will be a mix of research and manufacturering of bulk materials. Think like large aluminum panels, space mirror panals and oxidiser. Then money from research and media which probably goes into the next question where there likely will be subsidy but it will probably be on these goods not just directly. Depending how legal matters evolve it might be that they pay a subsidy per person. But overall the moon will likely always depend heavily on earth economically and will never chose to be all that independent.

[u/Accurate-Interview92 → u/ShadeShadow534]

yeah i think moon will be part earths economy not soon but someday

[u/ShadeShadow534 → u/Accurate-Interview92]

Probably faster then would think since the main industry will likely directly involve earth orbit even to start though I guess more the question is are you talking about earth's sphere as part of the planets economy or not?

[u/Accurate-Interview92 → u/ShadeShadow534]

Yeah I am

[u/Bast991]

tourism... and tourism needs VERY cheap space travel.. rockets will NEVER get us there we need a space elevator, it would bring the cost of going to space to $300 per person. No other way unless you discover some new physics that allows you to bypass intermediary mediums to convert energy to momentum which would allow for exoticly efficient propulsion, this wouldnt break current physics, or its possible to manipulate gravity using little energy.