Prospecting The Moon

[tgharris]

I have just finished reading Dennis Wingo's <i>Moonrush</i>. For those who haven't read it (I won't spoil the ending!), this book is Wingo's case for lunar exploration and development, predicated on the possibility of profitably extracting platinum and platinum-group metals from meteoric metal deposits on the Moon.<br /><br />After reading his book, I was left curious as to how one could get hard evidence to back Wingo's assertion that meteoric metal exists on the Moon in a practically extractable, concentrated form--"chunks" within a limited area, not just fine powder evenly dispersed all over the lunar surface. Does anyone out there know about remote sensing? Short of a rover searching the entire lunar surface with a metal detector, is there any practical way to resolve and map concentrations of meteoric nickel-iron on or near (~2m) the lunar surface?

 

[rogers_buck]

Set off a long sequence of timed charges in an impact basin. Time the charges to match the characteristic frequency of the basins geometry. Chunks should come to the surface exactly like Brazil nuts surfacing when you shake a can of mixed nuts.<br />