"Moonlight"...that's all I got... Coming up on 50 years since we first landed no one has made an economic/scientific case worth the expenditure so far...
It's always harder to make the economic case in the beginning, which is the bootstrapping phase. But once more activities are underway and in place on the Moon, the economic case will gradually open up, particularly as costs drop.
Robotic equipment for ISRU and construction activities will get cheaper and more capable, to bring the overall costs down.
trying to find economic reasons to go to space will just make you frustrated. It is not like hopping a ship and heading to the new world to scratch out a living.
Quote from: Rhyshaelkan on 09/26/2016 11:41 pmtrying to find economic reasons to go to space will just make you frustrated. It is not like hopping a ship and heading to the new world to scratch out a living.Wrong comparison. The very first settlements were erected as a support base to explorers (think ISRU of fuel and supplies for the return trip). It took several attempts before the first colony broke even, and some of the more famous succesful settlements were started up to get away from unpleasant people in the old continent, not primarily to make money. Others ended up making money in unforeseen ways. And interestingly, some tried to recuperate some of the money by making products that could be made in Europe as well, because otherwise the ships would 'return empty'. There's a familiar ring to those words. Scratching out a living an ocean away was quite hard back then too. Incredibly high mortality rate and starvation even for those times, and they didn't even go off the planet.Having locals with knowledge how to get food and having concentrated wealth for thousands of years helped a lot in both surviving and early profits to show people that it could be done.
Science (geology). Given that the moon lacks weather and volcanic activity, it preserves deposits just below the surface that have remained unchanged for millions of years. Probably not enough justification to start a full size colony, but enough resin to seriously consider a small outpost.
A "practical" case, without assuming any customers that don't(haven't) already exist(ed)? That would definitely be a cold-war era missile base, the original case for the (1960s) Orion spacecraft. Camouflaged lunar bases can be very difficult to locate and attack, especially if they are on the far side. But that isn't how you should look at space exploration, otherwise you'll come to the conclusion that geostationary earth orbit is the only place worth going to.
Mining platinum group metals and rare earth elements could eventually become profitable.They're difficult to get on Earth but on the moon ore is just sitting on the surface in the form of meteorites.It may even become a necessity in the near future as terrestrial sources are running out.
Quote from: Patchouli on 09/29/2016 06:05 pmMining platinum group metals and rare earth elements could eventually become profitable.They're difficult to get on Earth but on the moon ore is just sitting on the surface in the form of meteorites.It may even become a necessity in the near future as terrestrial sources are running out.It seems if there is lunar water to mine, then the PMG could be mined.If there is rocket fuel at lunar surface, this could allow PMG to be mined on Moon without dramatic lowering of earth launch costs. But were earth launch cost to lower- Musk idea of very low launch cost in order have mars settlements- then such lowering of costs could allow mining of Moon of PMG. One would need to develop transportation from the Moon which used less rocket fuel or no rocket fuel- quite risky and expensive in terms infrastructure costs, but if it worked, it could have low cost per lb/ton and if shipped enough thousands of tons per year, it could pay for the high up front costs.