Industrial development of the Moon is no longer a fantasy and is becoming a question of the coming decades. Interest in Earth's satellite today is fueled more by economic prospects and geopolitical competition than by scientific curiosity. At stake is access to resources, technological leadership, and the ability to dictate rules in the new space era.

What are they looking for on the Moon?

The main interest today is focused on the southern pole of the Moon. There, areas with constant sunlight and, more importantly, deposits of water ice have been discovered. Water is not only drinking water for future settlers. It can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, obtaining rocket fuel and components for breathing. Whoever first creates infrastructure in these strategic locations will gain a decisive advantage.

Aside from water, other resources are also attracting attention. The lunar regolith contains rare earth metals, titanium, iron, and vanadium. But the main hope is associated with the isotope helium-3. It is extremely rare on Earth, but its concentration is significantly higher on the Moon. Helium-3 is considered a promising fuel for nuclear fusion and is in demand in quantum computing and medical tomography.

Who is building the lunar economy?

A new space race has erupted over the industrial development of the Moon. The competition is between three main forces: the United States, China, and Russia.

USA and the Artemis program

NASA is implementing the ambitious Artemis program, whose goal is to return humans to the Moon and create a permanent base there. It is planned that by 2032, a semi-permanent infrastructure will be deployed, and then permanent human presence will begin. The base will be built in the southern polar region. NASA has already signed contracts for the development of lunar rovers and unmanned vehicles worth nearly four hundred and forty million dollars for the construction and supply of the base.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called this base the first American and human outpost on another celestial body.

China and Russia: an alternative alliance

Beijing and Moscow are developing the International Lunar Scientific Station as an alternative to the American program. China has already demonstrated its capabilities by delivering a lunar rover to the far side of the Moon and returning soil samples. Beijing sets the task of sending its taikonauts to the surface by 2030. Russia is connecting its accumulated experience to the project, although its own program has encountered a pause after the failed landing of the Luna-25 probe.

Robots or people?

The key question of industrial development is who will work on the Moon. Academician Lev Zelyony, the scientific director of the Institute of Space Research, believes that success will depend not on whose astronaut first steps on the Moon in the 21st century, but on the development of robotics.

Lunar conditions are extremely hostile to humans: high radiation, lunar dust, absence of a magnetic field, and huge temperature fluctuations. Robots can work around the clock and do not require complex life support systems. Therefore, the priority is the creation of universal automatic systems capable of solving practical tasks in these extreme conditions.

Astronaut Anton Shkaplerov believes that the extraction and processing of ore will be carried out by robots, and people will mainly be needed for repairing complex equipment. At the same time, the delivery of raw materials to Earth is economically unfeasible, so the entire production cycle should be organized directly on the Moon.

When will mining begin?

Forecasts vary, but most experts agree that economically viable mining of resources may begin in the next two decades. Currently, the number of start-ups related to lunar missions and global space investments is rapidly growing.

For example, the American start-up Interlune received a grant of six whole nine-tenths million dollars from NASA for the creation of a system for extracting gases, including helium-3, from regolith. The company has already announced pre-orders totaling half a billion dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy and private contractors.

However, not everyone shares optimism. Head of Rosnedra Oleg Kozhanov believes that there is no reason to expect rich deposits on the Moon. The geological history of the satellite is too simple to form large deposits. The only unusual resource is helium-3, which currently does not have technologies for industrial extraction and a high demand.

The legal issue: who owns the Moon?

The key issue that hinders investments is ownership of the extracted ore. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits national appropriation of celestial bodies. However, the United States takes the approach that the Moon itself cannot be appropriated, but the extracted resources become the property of those who extracted them.

This position is enshrined in the Artemis Accords, to which sixty-nine states have already joined. Russia and China criticize this approach, considering it contrary to the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty and advocating for an international control model. This legal conflict is essentially a reflection of the geopolitical struggle for lunar resources.
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