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An up-and-coming startup called Interlune is trying to become the first private company to mine the moon’s natural resources and sell them back to Earth. Interlune will initially focus on the moon’s abundant helium-3, a helium isotope created by the sun during the process of nuclear fusion.In an interview with ars technicaRob Meyerson, one of Interune’s founders and former Blue Origin president, said the company hopes to fly the harvester on one of its upcoming commercial satellite missions supported by NASA. The plan is to have a pilot plant on the moon by 2028 and begin operations by 2030, Meyerson said.
interrune announced this week that it has raised $18 million in funding, including $15 million in its latest round led by Seven Seven Six, the venture firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Helium-3, the resource the company is targeting, is used on Earth for applications such as quantum computing, medical imaging, and perhaps one day to fuel fusion reactors. Helium-3 is carried to the Moon by the solar wind and is thought to remain trapped in the soil at the Earth’s surface, but once it reaches Earth it is blocked by the magnetosphere.
Interloon aims to excavate large amounts of lunar soil (or regolith), process it to extract helium-3 gas, and transport it to Earth. Alongside its own lunar harvester, Interloon is planning a robotic lander mission to assess helium-3 concentrations at selected locations on the surface.
“For the first time in history, it is technically and economically feasible to extract natural resources from the moon,” Meyerson said in a statement. The founding team includes Meyerson and former Blue Origin chief designer Gary Rye, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison H. Schmidt, former Rocket Lab executive Indra Hornsby, and Alphabet’s top executive James Antifaev, who worked on the high-altitude balloon project “Lune”, is listed.