Hey, That's My Lunar Uranium!

Warning: Read at your own risk!!! ;)

India launched Chandrayaan-I on 22nd October; our nation's first lunar mission. It consisted of a probe to study the surface of the moon. We are also looking for a rare earth mineral viz., Helium-3, for our future energy requirements. An interesting thought stuck me while reading the about the mission profile. With India-US Nuclear deal in the backdrop, I made up a complete scenario. Just imagine, what if we could just mine Uranium from the moon. That would be cool!! Just forget the cost factor for a second(which we obviously shouldn't :P). We would get a reliable supply of Uranium and need to depend less on "genuine" nuclear supplier countries like US, Australia, Canada and "so called nuclear suppliers" (and maybe whiners) Ireland, Austria, New Zealand(God knows what they supply).

Thence we could generate enough electricity to provide power to our growing population and could also fulfill our military needs. There are three main questions here. The 1st one, "Is there Uranium on Moon?" The answer is "Yes". JAXA, Japan's Space Agency announced that the Selene mission has gathered detailed information regarding the mineral composition of parts of the Moon's surface, including thorium, potassium, and uranium sites. You can see the complete report here. The Chandrayaan-I will confirm the JAXA's data and hopefully find some new data.
The 2nd question is, "Can we claim the Uranium deposits on the moon?" The answer is "No". To this effect, Outer Space Treaty was signed and ratified in 1967 by almost all countries (all countries with launch capabilities included, including India). The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, since they are province of mankind. outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. Not only this, the treaty bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications. However, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit.
The 3rd million dollar question is, "Is mining allowed in outer space?". The answer is not defined, but presumed as "Yes". The Outer Space Treaty keeps mum on the issue of mining of resources from outer space. Space-faring nations maybe favorable to mining. However, if a country or company were to open a mine on Moon, it would be legally uncertain ground.
For those of you who've claimed to have bought a real-estate on moon, you've invested your money on nothing (you'd atleast get something, if nothing had you invested in Share markets even today!!! :P); I wished you'd done a little more research :D

Very capable technologies will be required if we have to achieve any of the above. Not to mention the cost of the technologies. Cheap ways must be found to launch system into space. ISRO's AVATAR RLV's to launch satellite into LEO is a small step in this direction, as was building of Space Shuttle. Then we'll need a Space station capable of storage, then mission control centers, management systems, telemetry and communications centre. Then, a fleet of space transport vehicles. In short, a complete Star Wars like system. So, we are centuries away :D

I wrote above analysis as fun, however, space agencies maybe indeed looking at space as resource waiting to be utilised. Also technology is advancing really fast, with new fields of genetics, nanotechnology emerging to revolutionalize our lives. With deep space programs such as Constellation Program by NASA, ESA's Aurora program, Russia's Lunar missions, China's CLEP (in Chinese), India's manned Chandrayaan-III in pipeline, countries are also showing keen interest in moon, mars and Solar System. The space research and development is following an evolutionary progress. So maybe after 100 years we'll be mining on moon and hopefully by 2145 we will be doing same on Mars(year sounds familiar, remember Doom 3 game ;)
In 1969, Neil Armstrong said while he set foot on moon,"A small step for man. A giant leap for mankind."
God bless the Homo Sapiens Sapiens!!!:)