A budding startup called Interlune is trying to become the first private company to extract the moon's natural resources and sell them on Earth. Interlune will initially focus on helium-3, an isotope of helium created by the Sun through the fusion process, which is abundant on the Moon. In an interview with Ars TechniqueRob Meyerson, one of the founders of Interlune and former president of Blue Origin, said the company hopes to fly its combine with one of the next NASA-backed commercial lunar missions. The plan is to have a pilot plant on the Moon by 2028 and begin operations by 2030, Meyerson said.
Interlunar announced this week that it has raised $18 million in funding, including $15 million in its most recent round led by Seven Seven Six, the venture firm started by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The resource targeted, helium-3, could be used on Earth for applications such as quantum computing, medical imaging and, perhaps one day, as fuel for fusion reactors. Helium-3 is transported to the Moon by solar winds and is believed to remain on the surface trapped in the ground, while when it reaches Earth, it is blocked by the magnetosphere.
Interlune aims to excavate large amounts of lunar soil (or regolith), process it and extract the helium-3 gas, which it would then send back to Earth. In addition to its patented lunar harvester, Interlune is planning a robotic landing mission to evaluate the concentration of helium-3 at the selected location on the surface.
“For the first time in history,” Meyerson said in a statement, “harvesting natural resources from the Moon is technologically and economically viable.” The founding team includes Meyerson and former Blue Origin chief architect Gary Lai, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt, former Rocket Lab executive Indra Hornsby and James Antifaev, who worked for Apollo's high-altitude balloon project. Alphabet, Loon.
