Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

I just can't imagine mining the moon being in any way shape or form easier than mining the earth. The list of workplace hazards would be impressive. I imagine we're talking surface mines to keep the logistics manageable, but then:

1. How do you get astrominers there and back safely and on a regular basis whilst still keeping costs down?

2. What would it cost to keep your astrominers well fed and rested in a comfortable environment (warm, enough water, entertainment, etc)

3. How much more in bonuses (danger of hazard, long way from home, etc) do you even have to pay an astrominer vs a terraminer?

4. Most mines have some form of processing on site, e.g. break down rocks and sift through shit. How do you get those massive machines up there on the cheap and service them frequently on the cheap? Do we even have the machines that can work in those conditions?

5. Gravity is weak on the moon, I can imagine rocks of considerable mass flying or tumbling about being an issue. Sifting doesn't work as it does on earth without normal gravity and abundant water.

6. etc. etc. etc.?

I mean I think it'd be cool if we could pull it off as a civilisation but I just can't imagine how out there in scope and complexity moon mining would be.

I actually find it quite interesting that people are jumping to the conclusion that the comment is demeaning. Ambiguous and lacking a particular effort to be explicitly positive, sure. But where is the "criticizing and demeaning" the author part? The comment is bare and terse, questioning whether it's really that impressive when you factor in geography or whether it's more or less to be expected. There is no ad hominem attack.

For instance, Japan has good sea food cuisine. Sure that's awesome and nothing to disparage, but neither is it especially impressive considering they're an island. I think this is the point the comment is attempting to communicate.

Fun to see Kiruna here on Hacker News! My wife and I lived there for a year in 2014/2015. The mine is the _reason_ for the town, and it's exciting for my friends that live there to see additional minerals other than the high-quality iron ore they currently are mining.

As some other comments have mentioned, the town is being moved as the mine follows the iron ore under the current town. It's a relatively small town (~22,0000 people) but it's still a huge project to move.

The new deposit is under the town's ski slope on Luossavaara, which is the site of a now-abandoned iron ore mine. Luossavaara is the "L" in the mining company's LKAB name (Fully, Luossavaara Kiruna AB), so good that it's going to be working again under that same played-out deposit. It's also almost directly under my sister-in-law's house--which means they're probably slated to move too!

Not one sentence mentions anything close to child labor. And environmental activists are going to be activists wherever you go.

What is however completely missing from the article is them to show actual numbers. If you look at SQMs environmental report you get a different picture: https://www.sqmlithium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SQM-Re...

Much of what is being done to protect the environment isn't voluntary, the government is pushing reductionn of water use, use of renewable energy and lowering of emissions at mining sites.

It's a mining country and it has been for more than 100 years, wars have been fought over this. There is no other meaningful industry here. So this won't stop anytime soon.

Unfortunately, getting to an asteroid requires emitting quite a bit of pollution on our own planet first.