Book Review: Mining the Moon by David Dietzler (Ep.23)

Have you ever wondered what human settlements on the moon would look like? Do you know the Moon's surface is covered with dozens of elements that are valuable? Want to know what tourism on the Moon might look like? If you want to learn the answers to these questions, or learn something new today, I think you'll enjoy this review.

Works Cited: 

• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56156264-mining-the-moon?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=fPIIB1OScS&rank=3
• https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/the-lunar-gold-rush-how-moon-mining-could-work

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Transcript

Hello everyone, this is your host Josh, welcome to the Revitalized Reading Podcast. Today’s episode will be covering my review and thoughts on this seasons Science/Technology book, ‘Mining the Moon: Bootstrapping Space Industry’ by David Dietzler. If you are a fan of space, and especially space in relation to human exploration and travel, I think you’ll really enjoy today’s episode.  

‘Mining the Moon’ was published in 2020, and the edition I read, the 3rd edition, is 147 pages long. The Synopsis found on the back of the book reads, “Have you ever wondered how the moon, outer space, Mars and beyond will be settled by humans? This book discusses the industrialization and settlement of the moon, our stepping stone to free space, Mars, the solar system and ultimately the stars. It looks at the technical challenges of mining the moon for all sorts of materials to build solar power satellites, spaceships and space settlements in orbit. Engineering students and professionals alike will enjoy this book and so will technically minded people of all sorts.”

Who is David Dietzler? Sadly, there isn’t a whole lot of information out there for Mr. Dietzler, but here is what Mining the Moon says about him. “David Dietzler is a freelance writer from St. Louis Missouri. He is a longtime space enthusiast, amateur astronomer, and member of the St. Louis Space Frontier, an award winning chapter of the National Space Society.” Mr. Dietzler has written 7 books, ‘Mining the Moon’ being the most widely known, his newest book is ‘Settling the Solar System’ which talks about the how humanity can inhabit all corners of the Solar System.  

So what is ‘Mining the Moon’ all about? Simply put, this book focuses primarily on how humanity can utilize the moon in a multitude of ways mostly mining, and for what purposes. There are 18 chapters, and I’ll give a brief overview of each one. Chapter 1: Why Mine the Moon? While not the main focus of the book, chapter 1 gives the reasons and the why for Mining the Moon, and ultimately starting a human settlement on the moon. Chapter 2: Lunar Money Matters. This chapter talks about the financial potential for companies and countries alike with things like rare minerals, research, and even tourism of the Moon. Chapter 3: Lunar Resources. Dietzler explains the vast amounts of natural resources that are, or might be present in the Moon. Everything from Titanium, Uranium, and even Oxygen. 

Chapter 4: Bootstrapping. For Mining companies, building infrastructure, and even entire communities around dig sites can vastly improve the efficiency and profitability of mining ventures, the potential steps for this process are laid out in this chapter. Chapter 5: Special Lunar Materials and Products. Here Dietzler points out how the Moons vast resources can be used almost immediately after mining. Examples given are Magnesium based explosives, Meteoric Iron being used to create extremely high quality mining tools, and Moon glass to help with infrastructure. Chapter 6: Lunar Chemistry. This chapter covers the rather complicated subject of using the Moons other resources to create plastics. Dietzler explains that the Earth’s plastics are largely created from Fossil Fuels, a finite resource, whereas the Moon has vastly more chemicals to produce plastic with none of the bad side effects. 

Chapter 7: Biomaterial. In this chapter, Dietzler explains that Biomaterial can be much more useful outside of food, specifically vegetable oil. Vegetable oil can help make soaps, fuels, and even clothing dye. Chapter 8: Lunar Cement. Apparently, the composite materials on the moon makes incredibly high quality cement, 3 to 4 as durable as Earth’s premier cement. This Lunar cement can help with mining efforts, settlement efforts on the moon, or be exported back to Earth. Chapter 9: Lunar Tourism. As the Chapter heading suggests, Dietzler covers what Tourism on the moon might look like, and how it can be a massive source of income for companies and nations alike. Some examples could be Lunar sports, Lunar summer camps, and many other things.

Chapter 10: Spaceships. Spaceships are obviously an integral part of this whole Mining the moon business, so this chapter goes over what kinds of ships would not only be most cost effective, but practical for different roles. The problem of fuel is also addressed in this section. Chapter 11: Asteroids, Orbital Refueling, Electric Propulsion and Beyond. Geoing back and forth between the Earth and the Moon is currently a complicated process, so Dietzler points out ways that process can be made easier or more efficient. Some of these methods include orbital refueling in space, or using electric propulsion to cutout fuel altogether. Chapter 12: Interplanetary communication. The ability for Earth and the Moon to communicate is not only helpful, but crucial to success on the moon, whatever the objective. Communicating over the thousands of miles between the two terrestrial bodies isn’t exactly easy, at least right now, but Dietzler points out some ways it could be improved or implemented in the future. 

Chapter 13: Bootstrapping in Orbit. This chapter explains the importance of staging areas for continual travel of men and materials to and from the Moon. This would include space stations to monitor and act as a sort of Air Traffic Control in Space, and docking stations for unmanned ships to deliver payloads of raw materials or supplies. The possibilities are endless. Chapter 14: Recycling. Recycling in space, and the moon will not only help save space and prevent excess waste, but can also provide even more materials for mining, fuel, or water reserves on the moon. Chapter 15: Nuclear Power. With the vast amounts of Uranium, Thorium, and other precious metals, nuclear power on the moon could very well be the best and safest option. On top of that, Nuclear rockets could also become gamechangers with heavier payloads, longer distances, and the lack of further fossil fuel consumption. 

Chapter 16: Law and Order in Space.  With entire settlements and corporations in space and on the moon, governance and law are rather important elements of the process. What that will look like of course is entirely unpredictable, but Dietzler gives his best guesses and suggestions on the subject. Chapter 17: Humans into Space. This chapter lays out the challenges and roadblocks in front of humanity when it comes to living in and eventually settling parts of space, and then the moon. While many of these problems are a result of lack of technology, others are inherent to space habitation no matter the technology. Keeping a constant stream of food, water, and living space for increasing numbers of pioneers will prove to be a monumental task. Chapter 18: Beyond the Moon. Once humanity conquers the Moon, what’s next? The potential destinations and opportunities are endless, but Dietzler suggests Mars should be our next objective, and then the solar system at large. The time table for all of this varies of course, but time will tell how quickly, if ever, humanity creates a new frontier on the Moon, or even beyond. With that, the book ends. I very likely got some things wrong in this recap, and I certainly didn’t do the book justice in its sheer volume of information, but hopefully this was a decent enough overview. 

So how does Mining the Moon score for Comprehension and Engagement? As far as Comprehension goes, I give the book a 7/10. Many of the concepts and science jargon heavy portions were difficult to comprehend right off the bat, there are other sections I still would be hard pressed to explain very well, but overall the book is understandable where it needs to be. For engagement, I think the score is also 7/10. There are certain chapters I was really into, and wanted to learn more, and then there were others that weren’t that interesting to me. Altogether though, most of the book had parts that I learned something or was interested in at the least. 

Now I want to share three different quotes from the book that house some really incredible information, that I hope you will find just as interesting as I did. The first quote is on page 16, “Lunar soil, regolith, or Moon dust is mostly oxygen and silicon along with iron, calcium, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, and traces of chromium, manganese, sodium, potassium, phosphorous, sulfur, and tiny amounts of many other elements. It also contains traces of hydrogen, helium, methane, CO, Co2, and nitrogen implanted by the solar wind that can be extracted by mining millions of tons of regolith and heating it to about 700 degrees Celsius, or about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit.”

On page 52, we read, “Metals produced on the Moon will probably contain impurities. In the free vacuum and low gravity of the Moon, purification will be easier. There will be no air, therefore, there will be no contamination by oxygen, nitrogen, or moisture, when red hot metals are purified.”

The final quote is on page 71, “Most of us who were young during the Space Race looked forward to a 21st Century with regular and frequent flights to the moon. If it does become possible for five million tourists to visit the Moon every year, something that will require substantial habitable volume on the Moon perhaps in pressurized lava tubes, then over the course of a 75 year lifetime as many people as there are in the USA today could visit the Moon.”

Now it’s time for ‘Mining the Moon’s’ Goodreads reader reviews. There are only 4 reviews currently, but I’ll read all 4 from Lowest to Highest rating. The first review, which is a 1 star, is from Martin Vales, he said, “I haven't read the book yet, I just give one star because I don't like that the author gave himself a five stars rating...”

The Next review is a three star review from Carter, they said, “It is interesting to read old speculation (and a bit of old fashioned engineering in some cases) about what the Moon, inner/outer Solar System, would mean to human industry in the future. A slice of history, which is perhaps relevant and timely given that launch costs have recently be reduced several orders of magnitude. Recommended.”

For our 4 star review, Robert Theodorson say, “It's an incredible book with a wealth of information on a very niche subject. I'm subtracting a star because the readability can become quite difficult for non-engineers like myself. I really enjoy how Dietzler has really considered everything from start to 100 years from now and provides details on how all his ideas would work. I think this book finally sold me on the fact that we're going to need to invest in a space elevator at some point in humanity's near future. Launching everything back and forth just isn't reasonable, especially when we need heavy robotics and mining equipment on the moon. Some parts get a bit silly, like the Law & Order aspect which calls for a Federation of planets but I get what he's talking about. This is NOT a pool side/casual book. It's a great reference and way to explain how space resource extraction would actually take place though.”

For our final review, James Francis McEnanly gives his 5 star review. “Everything you wanted to know about building on the Moon.This book contains the information that you would need to establish a self sufficient colony on the Moon. From the minerals to build the concrete structure to the trace elements needed for agriculture, this book tells you how to find them and how to get them from the soil.”

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any peer or critic reviews for the book unfortunately, but if any of you out there can find one, please let me know so I can post the link below. For the G-R rating, I give the book the rating of G. It’s perfectly fine for all ages, but because of the complex information, it might be best for older audiences to read it just for understanding’s sake haha. 

How does Mining the Moon score Overall? I think with all of the factors I mentioned earlier, along with a couple of others I’ll talk about here in a sec, this book is a 6/10.

Final Thoughts: Positives-very informative, really interesting at points, 97 citations. Negatives, punctuation problem, slower moments, pretty complex concepts discussed. 

Thank you for taking the time to give this a listen, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I think many of you will be very excited to hear that the Podcast’s first guest will be the Author of this book, Mr. David Dietzler! The interview will be held in early August, so if you want to get updates, and even have the opportunity to send in questions for me to ask him, follow the podcasts social media pages below. Join me next time for my review of the Psychology book, ‘Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement’. Have a great day, thank you for all of your support, stay safe, and as always, keep reading.