How to Exploit Lunar Resources and Bring them to Earth

A couple of months ago, while talking with a friend at the gym, we started a random conversation that has been occupying my thoughts ever since.

Imagine this scenario: you’re tasked with exploiting lunar resources and transporting them back to Earth. But there’s a catch—you don’t have a rocket to send them back. How do you solve this problem?

Yeah, I know—it’s a pretty weird and random question. But let’s think it through; we can definitely come up with some awesome solutions.

The first solution that came to mind was simply throwing them to Earth. Since the Moon and Earth are gravitationally linked, I figured if we throw them hard enough, they’ll eventually get here. The main limitation is that we need to launch the resources with enough velocity to escape the Moon’s gravity. Otherwise, they’ll just end up orbiting the Moon, polluting our orbital space and complicating future missions with space debris.

Building on that idea—why not dynamite the resources? If we don’t have a rocket, let’s turn the resources into a rocket. This comes with its own set of problems, like pollution, and the lack of control over where the resources would land on Earth—assuming they don’t just disintegrate in the atmosphere.

Considering those issues, a lunar trebuchet or a laser-propulsion space sail made from a bed sheet and a laser pointer aren’t much better as solutions.

Then my friend came up with a wild idea: If we can’t send the resources from the Moon to Earth, let’s bring the Moon to Earth. He suggested creating a massive rope, tying it to the Moon, and pulling it closer. Even if this were physically possible, the Moon would likely shatter due to tidal forces after crossing the Roche limit, creating a planetary ring. Meanwhile, Earth would probably be destroyed by massive tides, extreme winds, and gravitational instabilities.

The idea was ridiculous, but it opened my mind. We don’t need to focus solely on realistic methods for transporting resources; we can break the mold and devise solutions that go beyond our current imagination.

Remembering an old city-builder video game, my first thought was a space elevator—a massive tube connecting Earth and the Moon. Of course, the rotation of both bodies is a huge problem. But maybe we only need to connect the nearmost points of the two systems; we don’t necessarily need to anchor it to the ground. We launch the resources, they’re caught by the tube, and on the other side, a collector receives them and gently brings them down to Earth.

Building a tube of those dimensions is incredibly complicated and expensive, but it planted the seed for new ideas. Who said we need a tube? We could just play baseball with the resources! We’d create a “pitcher” on the Moon and a “catcher” on the Earth side. The catcher receives the resources and then sends them down to Earth in a controlled manner.

Alright, that solution is great, but there’s almost 300,000 km between Earth and the Moon. We need to ensure the resources travel that distance without drifting off course. A tube would solve this, but surely we can do better.

One day at the university, during a heavy rainstorm, I was watching water drain from the roof to the ground. It wasn’t using a downspout tube; it was a rain chain. This sparked an idea: what if we placed small asteroids along the trajectory of the resources? This way, the resources would receive regular gravitational nudges to keep them from drifting off course!

The beauty of this approach is that we can utilize gravitational assists to achieve incredible speeds and better control, significantly reducing the load on our “pitcher” and “catcher” systems.

There are problems, I know—it’s not a perfect solution. But I’ll continue pondering this problem, dreaming up crazy solutions that will probably never be executed.

It’s fun trying to solve these kinds of seemingly impossible problems. It’s an idea generator, a mold-breaker I use to train my mind for solving real-world challenges. I hope you enjoyed this thought experiment. If you have any other random problems you want to solve, drop them in the comments—I’d be glad to brainstorm some wild solutions!

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