Alex McColgan

The colours, the motion, the scale, they remind us how vast and awe-inspiring the universe really is.

Have you ever had your breath taken away when seeing these videos of our sun, Milky Way, or perhaps Venus?

Well now, Patreon members have access to these wallpapers for your phone and laptop.

Sign up with the link below.

It's a simple way to bring that sense of wonder into your daily life while supporting future Astrum creations.

As more countries and companies set their sights on space, it may make you wonder, what's the end goal?

Do we simply want to be a space faring species?

Exploring the solar system for the betterment of humanity?

Or do people smell profit in space?

While researching this video, I found out a lot of eye-opening reasons why mining in space, and especially on our moon, might well be something that we see happening in the next couple of decades.

Why?

Well, just wait until you find out what's actually there to be mined.

The first substance is known as helium-3.

You may have heard of helium-3 in sci-fi stories, as theories suggest it is the ideal substance for a clean type of nuclear reactor, with no radiation and no dangerous byproduct.

It also has uses in medicine and radiation detectors.

However, it is really rare on Earth.

It does occur naturally and can be found in deposits of natural gas for instance, but it's generally not viable to extract, as even in natural gas, there are only around 100 parts per billion.

So let's say we had 1 billion cubic metres of natural gas.

You'd only be able to extract around 15kg of helium-3 from it.

A lot of the time, that's not economically viable.