The rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.
When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”
I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”
We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!” Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.
When we met a couple weeks later, I strode into the Jax Lunar Lumber Hall, laid my compad gently on the table and said, “We have a bigger problem than I thought – and we have a huge opportunity.” That got the Board’s attention, young, old and in-between. “Turns out, the Moon has a shortage.” Their regard intensified. “While we seem to have a growing market for Lunar-grown lumber, wood, and other products, we’ve profoundly overlooked a secondary – but eventual primary source of not only income, but usefulness to Lunar civilization.”
One of the Middle-Aged Jax Board Members, Pahnnik, lifted a hand and said, “Lithium.”
I smiled, adding, “Take it away, Pahn.”
He nodded, stood, and went to the holotank. “We already know that our control of the Moon Trees – for posterity, of course.” His smile would have have been only slightly more frightening if he’d had his teeth capped with points. As it was, a few of the more timid members of the family fell backward into their seats. I raised my brows to encourage him. He said, “The Moon Trees, while the obvious foundation of our corporation here, and one I have no trouble encouraging as I have come to rather enjoy breathing since I was born,” he flashed the smile. I was glad to see that over half of us weren’t being fooled by his folksy pitch, leaning forward, folding our hands, gaze narrowing a bit, and resting our chins on hands folded into fists. He blew from his nose faintly, irritated, and continued, “It turns out they might have a more…concentrated use.”
He looked to me and bowed slightly. With my obvious approval assured to the family Board, I said, “I’ll let Pahnnik continue. It’s a good idea – maybe even helpful for Lunar civilization.”
He tapped the table in front of him and sat as an image appeared in front of us, “Simply put, agromining describes a process that uses plants to extract metals from soil. The process ideally harvests metals from high biomass crops which grow in metal rich soils, particularly those associated with sub-economic mineralization. The crop is harvested, and incinerated, leaving behind a high-grade bio-ore. In some cases, we can use the heat from incineration to feed into other processing, like distillation, purification, and even heating. Agromining offers the possibility of exploiting metal rich soil substrates that are otherwise uneconomic to mine. In our case, we’d be recovering lithium.”
“For batteries?” said Felix, the youngest member of the Board at seventeen. Gengineered and trained in esoteric mathematics; a sort of biocomputer, so to speak, he freaked out his peers while also being devastatingly handsome and funnier than most HV comedians.
“Certainly, but lithium has some fairly toxic effects on Humans,” said Shantell-Alberta, one of the Senior Members. “I’d hardly call that a ‘market boon’.”
“In and of itself, it’s not. However, since research on Faster-Than-Light drive has cast a fairly large net, lithium’s use to deal with various mental health challenges – mostly in the past, but some that continue even today – has brought it to the attention of the FTL Drive Center.”
Shantell-Alberta’s only-slightly-younger twin sister, Bernice-Coretta, shook her head, rolling her eyes. “By which you mean, you grabbed the Director’s hand and led him to a fancy dinner?”
ShanA, as she was known to her sister during less-formal arguments, said, “Bernie, your political acumen astounds me. Of course I did. It aligns us with the future of Humanity among the stars!” She flicked her fingers at her much-younger cousin.
But Felix interrupted, “And it’s a solution.“ He paused. Lots of frowns, irritation, and obvious to me, avid looks from the Youth Coalition Felix led. “A solution to the troubling problem of the test pilots – both AI and Human – to experience profound…shall we say, bouts of suicidal depression and a tendency to suicide before being debriefed upon their return from brief forays into interstellar space.”
Someone behind me muttered, “I’d be happy to debrief Felix.” I turned, scowling, to scowl at several of his birth cohort.
They uniformly cringed, fingers twitching enough for me to be pretty sure they were have trouble reconciling their desire to curry favor with me…or be violently dealt with by the commentator. “Watch it, kids.” I grunted, and turned back to the meeting.
Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html; https://www.ancestry.com/first-name-meaning/jax#:~:text=The%20name%20Jax%20traces%20its,name%20in%20its%20own%20right.; https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/8/2/56 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_(medication)
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