European Lunar Station

What we need is gold on the moon Or any other valuable material. Is there a possibility of the moon having valuable metals under its surface? If so, mining could maybe trigger a goldrush or something. The only 'need' for it is probably a big telescope, but that's a scientific need, not a social need. I'd love to see some billionairs building there homes up there

Gold is far too cheap a resource to mine economically on the Moon. Some people point to helium3, which could have value in the future if a reactor to use it were ever invented. Unfortunately there is not yet any known way to make such a reactor so it currently has no economic value.
So why even go to the Moon? I think it will soon be similar to the way Antarctica is today. Good for scientific purposes and rich adventure travelers.

Under www.welt.de there is an interview with Evert Dudok, Director for space projects at EADS today.

Dudok say that there is a german-dutch initiative to build a radiotelescope at the far side of the Moon.

The radiotelescope would be built at or close to the lunar southpole in or beginning in 2013. The telescope would consist of several small antennas carried to the Moon by an Ariane 5. The first flight would carry 100 antennas and there would be seven flights in total. The first portion of 100 antennas would cost Euro 1.3 billion within two years.

Those 100 antennas would be located within a circle of 300 meters. But this is just one telescope forming a 300 m-telescope.

In 2014 an enhancement of that telescope could be agreed on - up to seven telescopes with 700 antennas in total - forming a telscope of a dimater of 600 km according to the interview published.

The antennas would be distributed by a strong feather shooting them out of the basic unit to different directions and under different angles to their locations using the small lunar gravity.

There already is a contract between EADS and the dutch science institute Astron.

Dudok hopes that the Council of Ministers will agree in 2008.

This could be the first step to a manned european station at the Moon.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

That telescope is really an interesting project and I'm looking forward to seeing it realized. However, it doesn't necessarily involve astronauts. Actually, ESA (or Europe in general) may not send astronauts to the Moon for the foreseeable future. If anything, they have concept studies for manned Mars missions running.

Kind regards
Max

To early.