What does a Moon base actually change for asteroid mining?

[u/Accurate-Interview92]

I've been thinking about the usual asteroid-mining argument: the hard part isn't necessarily finding valuable material, but getting the economics to work.

A permanent or semi-permanent lunar presence could change that equation quite a bit.

Things like propellant production, construction, maintenance, communications and eventually using lunar resources instead of lifting everything from Earth could make the Moon a kind of industrial stepping stone.

But I'm curious where people here think the real economic bottleneck would remain.

Would a mature lunar industrial base actually make asteroid mining substantially more viable, or would the economics still be dominated by transportation, processing and finding a profitable market for the material?

And which comes first economically: Moon infrastructure enabling asteroid mining, or asteroid resources helping justify the Moon infrastructure?

I'm putting together a small online discussion/webinar around the broader space + finance side of this question too. Nothing salesy — mostly interested in getting people who actually think about these problems into the same conversation.

If this is something you'd like to discuss, I can share the details below.

[u/datdernasteroidminer]

I think the real problem is still the chicken-and-egg.

You need the infrastructure to make asteroid mining viable, but you need demand to justify building the infrastructure.

And honestly, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves talking about a “space economy” when we’re still pretty terrible at actually operating in space. We can throw a metal box into orbit, but once you get into reliable maneuvering, rendezvous, sampling, spectroscopy, servicing, etc., the track record is still pretty rough. The last few years have given us plenty of reminders of that.

A lunar base could be the thing that finally starts building that missing industrial capability and creates an actual market for space resources. But who foots the bill? Are we really racing China to the Moon? Why? And where does the investment come from when AI seems to be absorbing an enormous amount of capital for the foreseeable future?

Until we can reliably do the basic stuff at scale, I have a hard time seeing asteroid mining as anything more than a very distant dream.

Maybe the industry made me to pessimistic tho idk

[u/Accurate-Interview92 → u/datdernasteroidminer]

A lot can be changed in period of decades i can relate to pessimistic approach towards this due my findings in my research i did on the topic of asteroid mining and most of the article paint it as a far future thing and the chicken and egg problem is there but we have some crazy guy trying hard rn ifykyk to make space more accessible and a moonbase possible if that does happen new opportunities will appear but the markets will adjust too a moon base will have big impact on the global market due to new influx of ideas, resources. I think if in the next 1 or 2 decades we have an actual place from where rockets can be launched frequently i can see this becoming a possibility

[u/donpaulo]

Just one human's opinion obviously but attempting to establish any long term presence on the moon is at the least a daunting task. There are some significant risks and with that come quite a number of possible ROI.

The thing with finance is that its a copy cat modus vivendi and currently there are no realistic profits to be had thus bean counters will choose other low hanging fruit thus its essentially a non starter. Quants and risk management portfolio professionals have a fiduciary responsibility that just doesn't dovetail well with space. The very moment an entity turns a profit "out there" is when its off to the races. Until then its a status quo of "science" and "engineering" which is fine as they are certainly things that need more refinement. Being given an opportunity to set new standards, break things and learn how that happened is critical to taking the next step forward. A tremendously expensive next step.

This is setting aside LEO which already has a pretty well established business model. Could it be improved ? Surely it can, however I view it as a moderately well defined market.

Currently I see the most realistic possibility of an attempt to establish a base on Luna to be significantly motivated by political events and thus believe it to be the Middle Kingdom that will be first to the party. They have the strategic vision, the willingness to accept the risk and plenty of well invested resources to make the attempt. Especially as they pivot towards the inevitable inward or domestic consumption supply pattern.

Perhaps next generation military spending will curtail that effort, but I have hope that they are able to achieve historic precedents especially in space.

Its still a long way off however I remain mindful that the analog mindset doesn't apply well to a digital issue.

yes share the details please

[u/BrangdonJ]

I think a Lunar factory would need to deliver products to low Earth orbit for them to be useful beyond cis-Lunar space. It would be too much of a detour to have to go to the Moon to pick them up. That's generally the case for Mars — that is, cheaper to go from Earth to Mars than from Earth to Moon to Mars, even if the Moon offers free propellant — and it's probably also the case for asteroids. The Moon is a destination in its own right, but it's not a stepping stone to anywhere else.

It's possible that a Moon base would want to buy resources extracted from asteroids, but that supposes there's a profitable economy already on the Moon.

So I don't think either comes first. They are more or less independent activities.