The Moon's minerals

On August 6, China unveiled an updated geological map of the entire Moon—produced at a 1:15,000,000 scale by the Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in collaboration with other partners—which serves as an improved version of the 2024 map.

It identifies 13,500 impact craters, 81 basins, 14 types of geological structures, and 17 rock types. Crucially, it pinpoints areas rich in mineral deposits—specifically potassium, rare earth elements, phosphorus, thorium, and uranium. According to this latest research, these elements (rare earths, phosphorus, thorium, and uranium) are more abundant than previously thought.

I believe there is a Chinese website where these can be viewed in greater detail; I only managed to access the official announcement, though I think the data is publicly available. I am not exactly sure where the website is, as I only saw the press release.

The goal for any major power is to be the first to reach the lunar South Pole—an area of ​​strategic interest—and establish a lunar base. Who will do it? China employs a very straightforward system architecture—much like the Apollo program—which, in principle, should minimize the risk of failure as they develop it step-by-step. The United States, on the other hand, has a multitude of projects—truly amazing ones—but the downside is that I believe some of them are over-scoped.

Starship is heavily over-engineered; it is ahead of its time. It is a spacecraft that requires another 10 or 20 years of evolution—I think it will be an efficient vehicle by the late 2030s—but now it has been tasked with serving as the lunar lander, and I am not entirely sure it can fulfill that mission because it is simply enormous.

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