By 
July 30th, 2023
Image credit: Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge/NASA
GOLDEN, Colorado – The pace is quickening for using Earth’s Moon as a near-term, go-to location to land, live and explore.
NASA’s Artemis back-to-the-Moon agenda is jelling. So too are long-term plans by small and large firms, academia, along with international space agencies.
Twenty-third meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held June 6-9 at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.
Image credit: Angel Abbud-Madrid/Colorado School of Mines
That was in evidence at the twenty-third meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held here last month at the Colorado School of Mines. A record attendance of some 250 participants spoke on lunar economic models, results of in-the-lab tests, and legal and policy issues. A number of entrepreneurial groups shared their strategies to turn the Moon into a hustle and bustle world of marketable services.
Down-to-Earth thinking about living, working, surviving and thriving on other worlds. Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.
Image credit: Barbara David
Key glue
The key glue that anchors future Moon use is labeled in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU: on-the-spot activity.
ISRU involves the extraction of oxygen, water and other available materials for cranking out rocket fuel and to “gas up” life-support systems. Then there’s pulling out metals on the Moon, say to fabricate lunar housing, landing pads, along with other structures and products.
To dig into this quickly evolving topic, go to my new Space.com story – “Moon mining gains momentum as private companies plan for a lunar economy” – at:
Posted in Space News
