In Britain, they believe that this will happen in the coming decades.
Paul Godfrey, head of Britain's Space Command, told The Times that China could already begin mining on the Moon in the coming decades.
He recalled that Beijing presented a white paper describing the most important minerals of the Earth's satellite.
"They have already delivered lunar samples to Earth and are going to go further in that direction. Mining of fossils on asteroids will become a reality in our lifetime," said 50-year-old Paul Godfrey.
First of all, says the Briton, Beijing will focus on mining helium-3. This is a potential fuel for fusion reactions.
Recall that at the end of 2020, the Chinese delivered 1,731 grams of lunar rock samples from the Moon to Earth. And in the fall of 2022, Chinese scientists announced the discovery of the new lunar mineral chanezite-(Y).
China intends to land taikonauts on the moon before 2030. Russia is scheduled to launch its first lunar mission in August of this year.
China also has a chance to become a world leader in the market of rare-earth metals. Their huge reserves may be concentrated in the Himalayas and the potential volume of deposits in these mountains is very likely to exceed the reserves that China is developing now. Chinese scientists connected artificial intelligence technologies to determine the exact coordinates of rare earth deposits in the Himalayas.