Meet the Billionaire Who Wants to Harvest the Moon

[Rey C.]

As a child growing up in rural India in the 1960s and 1970s, Naveen Jain would gaze up at the moon and imagine a life beyond his modest surroundings. Today he's still gazing at the moon, but for far different reasons.

Jain, 55, is co-founder of Moon Express, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that's aiming to send the first commercial robotic spacecraft to the moon next year.

This serial entrepreneur—he founded Internet companies Infospace and Intelius—believes that the moon holds precious metals and rare minerals that can be brought back to help address Earth's energy, health and resource challenges. Among the moon's vast riches: gold, cobalt, iron, palladium, platinum, tungsten and helium-3, a gas that can be used in future fusion reactors to provide nuclear power without radioactive waste.

It's an exciting prospect, considering supply on Earth for such rare minerals as palladium—used for electronics and industrial purposes—is finite, pushing prices to $784 an ounce on April 2.

"We went to the moon 50 years ago, yet today we have more computing power with our iPhones than the computers that sent men into space," he said. "That type of exponential technological growth is allowing things to happen that was never possible before."

Jain's Moon Express is not alone in its quest to harness the moon's riches. Several other Silicon Valley start-ups, such as Planet Labs and Masten Space Systems, have been making headlines recently as they enter the space exploration market, an endeavor long associated with, and controlled by, the government. At the same time, the global race is heating up with the Chinese government's recent success in landing a robotic rover on the moon in December.

"Now that we're shifting from U.S. government-sponsored space exploration to privately funded expeditions, it's important to look at how the resources of the moon could benefit everyone," he said. For instance, Jain explains that helium-3 is a source of energy that is rare on Earth but abundant on the moon. It is a possible fuel for nuclear fusion that could solve energy demand on Earth for 10,000 years, at least.

What do you think about this... especially the last part?

 

[Rattrap]

"Now that we're shifting from U.S. government-sponsored space exploration to privately funded expeditions...

What do you think about this... especially the last part?

I see the end of one of the truly international measures of American exceptionalism (or well, the continued end, since our involvement on the frontiers of science has been dwindling for decades...).

But you probably meant the other part of the last part! I'll get back to you when I finish this power engineering degree.

 

[sean miguel]

See, this is how James Bond movies get started.

MI6 has reason to believe this billionaire wants to harvest the moon for nefarious purposes and it's up to 007 to discover to what end, by sleeping with one of the lead scientists for the project - the beautiful and feisty Ms. Paris Goodwood.

 

[mokbel69]

The idea about going to the moon to harvest Helium-3 is something I first heard a few years ago. But if countries like the US and Russia, are willing to go to war over oil, why will Helium 3 be any different?

 

[itcouldbeme]

Concentrations of He3 are on the order of 10ppb on the moon. I wouldn't call that anywhere near "abundant"...

If there was any economic benefit whatsoever BP and their cohorts would be all over it!

Not some 3rd world goofball who's country's claim to fame is supplying Comcast with "customer service" experts...