value of lunar fractionation is severely compromised, however, by basing mining and extraction scenarios on analyses of ordinary country rock at the handful of sites directly sampled in the Apollo and Luna missions, and indirectly sampled through the lunar meteorites found in Antarctica. It has been said that the Apollo missions carried out "prospecting"; this is true, but not in the sense generally implied. In terrestrial mineral exploration, samples are collected widely, including many from ordinary rock that could not possibly be ore. Such sampling is carried out to establish a geologic context, to find where the ore might be. The Apollo and Luna missions have only begun to establish such a context for the Moon. Last, although the Moon does not have the vast range of ongoing geologic processes that the Earth does, it is nonetheless a planet-sized body that underwent protracted igneous activity in its early history. It is almost certain that exceptional concentrations of common elements occur locally on the Moon, and anomalous deposits of rare elements may exist as well. From an economic geology standpoint, much further exploration and pilot process testing is necessary before committing to a large-scale lunar mining operation. Acknowledgments Dave Vaniman and Dave Kuck are thanked for their many useful comments in their reviews of the manuscript. References Agosto, W. N., 1983 Solar furnace extraction of volatiles, metals, and ceramics from nonterrestrial materials (summary), in Space Manufacturing 1983, edited by J. D. Burke and A. S. Whitt, pp. 273-274, Advances in the Astronautical Sciences, 53, Univelt, Inc., San Diego, 1983 (proceedings of a conference held May 9-12, 1983 at Princeton University). Agosto, W. N„ 1985 Electrostatic concentration of lunar soil minerals, in Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st century, edited by W. W. Mendell, pp. 453-464, Lunar & Planetary Institute, Houston, 1985. Binder, A. B., 1988 Lunar resources: What is known and expected, in Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space, pp. 48-54, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1988. (proceedings of a conference held August 29-31, 1988, Albuquerque, New Mexico). Binder, A. B., 1990 LLOX - Metal production via NaOH electrolysis, in Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space II, pp. 339-346, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1990. (proceedings of a conference held April 23-26, 1990, Albuquerque, New Mexico).
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