THE ARTEMIS PROJECT
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE ON THE MOON
Cislunar Space Traffic Model
Section 2.4.
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Economics of the Lunar Community

The primary focus of the Artemis Project's long-range vision is to establish a self-supporting lunar community, people who live on the moon and earn a living from the work they do there. A significant fraction of the population will be able to move to the Moon and buy apartments in cities in the moon.

The Advanced Planning Technical Committee is working on an economic model for the lunar community. The lunar community -- that is, the permanent residents -- will earn their living either by exploiting the resources of the moon (including tourism) or through occupations which can telecommute to do business on Earth.

In section 2.7.2.1 you will find descriptions of the size of the staff and supporting industries required for lunar tourism to happen. We can assume those people are permanent or at least long-term residents. In addition to the lunar tourism, most of the other lunar resources industries -- oxygen, metals, volatiles, and everything else -- will need a lot of employees living on the moon.

The lunar community might also enjoy a significant advantage from people who want to live there just because it's a nifty place to live. Many occupations which exist on Earth today could be done from the moon -- if you can do it on the Internet, you can do it on the moon.

We should enthusiastically encourage telecommuting from the moon. Those who telecommute will be creating wealth on Earth owned by permanent residents of the moon. If enough people do this, it significantly enhances the economy of the lunar community by adding to the moon's positive balance of payments.

If cities on the moon reflect the economies of cities on Earth, for every person working in a production industry such as lunar mining and materials processing, we will have as many as nine working in service industries focused on supporting their neighbors. We can expect that eventually, the lunar community will include shopkeepers, barbers, waiters, gardeners ... all those jobs that people do because their neighbors need them done. We might even one day measure the wealth of the lunar community based on what proportion of the population can spend their time in these service industries.

Cislunar Space Traffic Model

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