---
type: claim
domain: space-development
description: "At $1M/ton lunar delivery (requiring Starship full reuse), precious metals extraction breaks even only if equipment-to-resource mass ratio matches terrestrial platinum mining efficiency — approximately 50:1"
confidence: experimental
source: "Astra, Space Ambition / Beyond Earth 'Lunar Resources: Is the Industry Ready for VC?' February 2025"
created: 2026-03-23
challenged_by: ["$1M/ton delivery cost assumes Starship achieves full reuse and high lunar cadence which remains speculative; current CLPS costs are $1.2-1.5M per kg — 1000x higher"]
---

# Lunar resource extraction economics require equipment mass ratios under 50 tons per ton of mined material at projected 1M per ton delivery costs

Beyond Earth Technologies modeled lunar mining profitability using equipment mass ratios — how many tons of mining equipment must be delivered to extract one ton of resource. At a projected $1M/ton lunar delivery cost (requiring Starship full reuse with multiple refueling flights), precious metals extraction breaks even only when equipment mass is maintained under 50 tons per ton of mined material — comparable to terrestrial platinum mining efficiency.

Key resource data from the analysis:
- **Water ice:** ~600 million metric tons in polar shadowed craters. Critical for ISRU but value depends on in-space demand, not Earth return.
- **Helium-3:** 1-5 million metric tons in regolith. "25 tons could power the US for a year" — but only with viable fusion reactors that don't yet exist.
- **Precious metals:** Rhodium $450-600M/ton, palladium $60-75M/ton, iridium $50-60M/ton, gold $60M/ton, platinum $30M/ton.
- **Rare earth elements:** Up to 50 ppm in KREEP-rich regions — but low prices relative to extraction costs make REEs uneconomic.

The $1M/ton delivery cost baseline is critical — current Commercial Lunar Payload Services costs are $1.2-1.5M per *kilogram*, meaning lunar delivery is currently 1,000x too expensive for mining economics. The entire thesis depends on Starship achieving full reusability with high cadence, which projects delivery costs from current levels toward $100/kg to LEO and proportionally lower (though still much higher) costs to the lunar surface.

The analysis explicitly acknowledges being "very approximate" and excluding fixed infrastructure, operating costs, and return transportation — meaning the actual breakeven is even harder than the model suggests.

## Challenges

The $1M/ton baseline is speculative until Starship full reuse is demonstrated. Even at that cost, the equipment mass ratio constraint is severe — terrestrial mining at 50:1 ratios benefits from gravity, atmosphere, existing infrastructure, and human workers. Lunar mining in vacuum, extreme temperature cycles, and without maintenance infrastructure will likely require higher mass ratios. The ~100 organizations focused on lunar ISRU may be pricing in optimistic delivery cost timelines.

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Relevant Notes:
- [[falling launch costs paradoxically both enable and threaten in-space resource utilization by making infrastructure affordable while competing with the end product]] — the ISRU paradox applies directly: cheaper launch makes lunar delivery feasible but also makes Earth-launched alternatives cheaper
- [[asteroid mining economics split into three distinct business models with water-for-propellant viable near-term and metals-for-Earth-return decades away]] — lunar mining faces similar model segmentation: water/oxygen for ISRU vs metals for Earth return
- [[Starship achieving routine operations at sub-100 dollars per kg is the single largest enabling condition for the entire space industrial economy]] — the entire lunar mining thesis depends on this keystone variable

Topics:
- space exploration and development
