A lie can be half way around the world before the truth has got its boots on

This is a little story close to my heart in the day job:

"I think there is a great commercial potential on the moon," he added, citing significant reservers of helium 3, which is rare on Earth and which could be developed into a clean energy fuel ideal for nuclear fusion. The lunar soil is also rich in coveted rare earth elements: 17 chemicals in the periodic table that are in an increased demand because they are heavily used in everyday electronics. "There are a vast amount of opportunities for a wide variety of companies not only in America but across the globe," Gold insisted, emphasizing Europe and Japan, as well as the US Congress, are enthusiastic about a return to the moon.

The lunar soil may indeed be rich in rare earths: I have no idea myself but it could be. However, absolutely no one, ever, is going to try and mine rare earths on hte Moon and then return them to Earth. It simply isn't going to happen.

What I think has happened here is that people have absorbed the stories of the past few years about impending shortages of the rare earths. All that stuff about China reducing exports of these metals so vital to modern electronics. And thus there's a feeling that any deposit of them, even somewhere as inaccessible as the surface of the Moon, must be something that people would want to exploit.

The problem is in the initial story: yes, China did limit exports but that does not mean that there's any shortage of these minerals here on out little planet. Several of them, individually, are as common as copper down here. And we produce millions upon millions of tonne of that each year while we use only 140,000 tonnes of all 17 rare earths together. There's simply no long term shortage.

And there's absolutely no way therefore that anyone's going to try and mine the Moon for things that can be had down here for $10 a lb.

My major point here being that these people are apparently basing their plans about lunar mining on something that simply never will be mined up there: at least not for returning down here. And it's inevitable that if you start basing your plans on untruths then your plans are going to fail at some point.