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The Conversation has an article on the case for mining the moon:
We need to think of a hierarchy of future applications. This begins with the use of lunar materials to facilitate human activities on the Moon itself. We can then progress to the use of lunar resources to underpin a future industrial capability within the Earth-Moon system. In this way, gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help “bootstrap” a self-sustaining space-based economy from which the global economy will ultimately benefit.
This article is by Ian Crawford, Professor of Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London, and summarises a more detailed paper review of Lunar resources (preprint version available), by the same author published in Progress in Physical Geography.
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Sunday November 30 2014, @01:41PM
As there is nothing to make on the Moon and nothing to sell, the colonies cannot become financially balanced - and that is important because no colony (at this point in human history) can become self-sufficient.
In a word? Advertising. You've seen NASCAR cars? Or the backdrops behind athletes after games? Every pic, every report, every piece of merchandise will be plastered with advertising. Every tweet will have a product placement in the avatar and a #productmention in the body. Every spacesuit will look like a NASCAR jumpsuit. The supply ships will have sponsors, every splashdown of raw materials will have sponsors, as will the news teams, the news desks, and the <insert something else here because marketers would brand a piece of shit if they thought it would sell one extra widget>.
Sure, the novelty will wear off after a while, but the first disaster will revive those ad placements and plaster the advertisers all over the web, TV and in print. We live in an advertising based society that farms user data as the fertilizer for sales. It's not hard to imagine that everyone with a computer, phone or TV will be watching some of this.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday December 01 2014, @02:01AM
Don't forget putting a corporate symbol on the Moon. How much would Coca-Cola pay? How much much would Pepsi pay to stop Coca-Cola?