What is worth more on the Moon 1 tonnes of He3 or 6,000 tonnes of H2?
If you assume that 1 kg of H2 is worth $2000, then a tonne is worth 2 million, and 6000 tons is worth 12 billion dollars.
If you could buy H2 on the moon for $2000 per kg that would be a good price. On lunar surface a kg of H2 should worth more O2 {40% of mass of Moon is oxygen- there is no shortage of oxygen- hydrogen will react with oxides producing water and pure metals}.
For every ton of He3 mined on the Moon "9000 tonnes of life supporting compounds; including water, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon AND more than 6,000 tons of Hydrogen"
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/gallery/pdf/on_wis0604.pdf
Hydrogen would worthless to ship to Earth, but it worth a lot of lunar surface in a usable form- e.g. stored in tanks. He3 is pretty useless on Lunar surface, but could worth "something" on Earth. He3 needs to shipped to Earth to have value. How much is a tonne of He3 worth on Earth?
Unknown {I couldn't get the price paid for it}, but I don't think it's worth 12 billion dollars.
How much is a ton of lunar regolith worth. It would far easier to get a tonne of lunar dirt to Earth than compared to the huge mining processing required to get a tonne of He3. Both lunar dirt and He3 are rare on Earth. Both lunar dirt and He3 would be lunar exports. The more either of them is sold on Earth the less demand there would be, but it would be very easy to sell a ton of lunar dirt- there is far more market demand for it. Lunar meteorites are about the same rarity as He3, and these meteorites now sell in price range of "$1,000 and $40,000 per gram" http://epsc.wustl.edu/admin/resources/moon_meteorites.html
If there was only 1 ton of lunar regolith, then it seems reasonable that you could sell for it $1000 per gram, so that 1 billion dollar per tonne. If you selling 10 tonnes per year, then it's unlikely that you would get $1000 per gram- though $500 per gram might be reasonable [about 25 times the current price of gold]
Space/Science » in reply to Frontiers and settlement
re: Frontiers and settlement
The whole thread (41 posts)
- Back to the Moon, Moonrush way
- yes agreed
- Frontiers and settlement
- There are intangibles that are important in human space exploration
- re: Back to the Moon, Moonrush way
