Could the Moon and its resources be used to aid humanity in the future? Naveen Jain, co-founder and chairman of California-based company Moon Express, explains that their plan is to explore the Moon for “resources of benefit to humanity”.
The Moon is known for its vast riches like gold, cobalt, iron, palladium, platinum, tungsten and Helium-3, a gas that can be used in future fusion reactors to provide nuclear power without radioactive waste. However, who ‘owns the Moon’? The United Nations’ 1979 Moon Agreement, states that “the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind”, while UN’s Outer Space Treaty, states that “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind”.
“Today, people look at diamonds as this rare thing on Earth,” Jain said. “Imagine telling someone you love her by giving her the Moon.”
NASA is apparently working with Moon Express to develop robotic spacecrafts. Moon Express is said to have signed an agreement to take over the decommissioned Space Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral. The launch pad will be used for Moon Express’s lander development and flight-test operations.
“Clearly, NASA has an amazing amount of expertise when it comes to getting to the Moon, and it wants to pass that knowledge on to a company like ours that has the best chance of being successful,” Jain said.
Also, Moon Express has been granted a $1 million prize from Google for taking part in the Google-sponsored Lunar X Prize, organised by the X Prize Foundation, that will award $30 million to the first company that lands a commercial spacecraft on the Moon, travels 500 meters across its surface and sends high-definition images and video back to Earth before the end of 2016.
“The purpose is to show that for the first time, a company has developed the technology to land softly on the Moon,” Jain stated. “Landing on the moon is not the hard part. Landing softly is the hard part.”
Moon Express is said to further test its robotic spacecraft at the end of the month. The MX-1, its lander, is said to take off from the pad and go up and sideways before landing back on the pad. Should the test be successful, the MX-1 will be deemed ready to travel to the Moon.
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“Today, people look at diamonds as this rare thing on Earth”. It takes only a few hours to artificially create a diamond which is identical to the mined one, I don’t think they can be called “rare”
Please forgive my terrible analogy, but what you’re saying is like comparing store-bought, factory-made cookies to grandma’s homemade cookies. People look at where something comes from and can place a lot of value based on that. Even though a diamond is a diamond, people may tend to prefer the natural one because it vame from the Earth.
Just my two cents because what you said got my brain working. Have a nice day. 🙂
TL;TR – Diamonds are VERY common and CVD Diamonds are just as good and of even better quality in most cases. And why we believe diamonds are rare is because of marketing.
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Well it’s still bullshit. The “Home-made” diamonds have been abundant since the days of mining explorations of the African and Asian continents in the 1800’s.
The reason why we think or that most who don’t have an interest in knowing more then what the need to will not learn or care about why we see the diamond as the precious resource that they sell it as.
The absolute majority of uncut diamonds are owned by the same corporation that has the soul ownership of the single standard of diamonds, namely “De beers”.
To make a VERY long story short, we in the west and how we look at diamonds are mainly a scheme from how they could sell diamonds for just as an expensive price as before but for the common worker.
And from there from the beginning of the 1900’s to the success of the campaign 1947 they finally was able to fool every western nation in to believing that diamonds have always been connected to love and marriage.
Which is why we are fooled with engagement rings and the 2 month salary plan and so on. But diamonds are VERY common in today’s highly industrialised world. However what would the point be in earning money if they circulated all the diamonds that existed in storage spaces.
De Beers wouldn’t be able to have the fortune that they have if they circulated all the Million upon Millions of uncut diamonds they keep in storage spaces like in the UK.
And also because they won the singular standardising and marking of “official” diamonds they will earn even more by holding it back and also by being able to decide which diamonds are okey and which one’s are not. Since they control it they control the paper work, so they are pretty much the only one’s who knows which one’s TRULY are the okey one’s and where they are truthfully from.
But when it comes to creating diamonds through Chemical Vapor Deposition CVD it’s easy and done all over the world with ease. And the diamonds are by far indistinguishable from earth diamonds except in most cases the CVD diamonds are even clearer and “better” then the natural one’s.
The truly rare ones are the ones that are shown in commercials and displays and are the few naturally formed that has developed in certain environment given them special properties. Which means the looks and clarity will be hard to copy even in controlled environment.
Other then those that rarely anyone owns except those so rich you won’t know about it, diamonds are VERY common and many of the minerals used in regular manufacturing are even rarer…..
Rich people who wants more money, despicable
for the umanity my ass only for rich ass who will profit of it ofc
Good to see I’m not the only one lacking faith here, haha :b
Good to see I’m not the only one lacking faith here, haha :b
Good to see I’m not the only one lacking faith here, haha :b
Good to see I’m not the only one lacking faith here, haha :b