In today’s post I want to talk about the plan to mine metals from the moon, what it means for precious metal stackers and whether precious metal stackers should be scared of a massive price decline.
To begin, it’s now been confirmed by NASA that NASA is looking to operate a pilot processing plant for lunar resources by 2032, as part of its planned Artemis missions. According to Gerald Sanders, a NASA scientist, the government body will initially look to quantify potential resources, including energy, water and lunar soil, as a goal to attract commercial investment. Now, NASA plans to build a permanent moon-orbiting base called Gateway, similar to the International Space Station (ISS). From there, the agency hopes to build a base on the lunar surface, where it can mine the resources required to fly the first astronauts to other planets. NASA will send a test drill to the Moon’s surface by the end of next week, with large-scale excavation activities scheduled for 2032.
Now from a political perspective, this doesn’t appear to have any hurdles in the future as both Obama and Trump have supported mining in space.
But that begs the question, as gold and silver stackers, should we be afraid of massive price decreases? My answer, is no, is a resounding no, and let me explain why. Mining on the moon and in space will be incredibly expensive to do and because of this gold, silver and other metals price should not tank in the future. And this would surely be the case for metals like Silver and Copper as although they are limited, their price is too low to justify an expedition for them. Now, it could be the case that some metals that are incredibly rare, maybe rhodium could see a price dip, but rhodium is a byproduct of palladium and platinum so I’m not sure how that would work.
It seems to me that even if large amounts were found, we’re decades away from NASA being able to haul tons and tons of metal from space. And to me I see the money for this possibly drying up and other projects taking priority like new satellites and a mission to Mars- which I think is being planned as we speak.
So, in conclusion, the saying there is a limited supply of gold and silver I believe is still going to hold true if moon mining begins.
