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The Chinese Communist Party is pushing for plans to mine the moon.

A new proposal from Chinese scientists would be to construct a magnetic launcher

that would work as a transport system in order to establish an Earth-Moon

economy.

Now, South China Morning Post said this.

They said Chinese scientists have proposed building a magnetic launcher on the moon to provide

a cost-effective way of sending resources extracted from the lunar surfaces back to the Earth.

It says the magnetic levitation facility would work on the same principles the hammer throw

in athletics, but rotating at increased speeds before throwing the launch capsule towards the Earth.

It says by taking advantage of the Moon's unique environment such as its high vacuum and low gravity,

it would be able to eject payloads twice a day at around 10% of the cost of existing transport methods,

according to researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering.

Now further states the proposed launch system would use a 50 meter, about 165 foot, rotating arm,

and a high temperature superconducting motor to launch capsules loaded with lunar resources.

After 10 minutes, the rotating arm would reach the moon's escape velocity of 2.4 kilometers per second,

about one-sixth of Earth's escape velocity, to put it on the

correct trajectory to return to Earth. It says the system would be powered by solar and nuclear

energy. This is important. And notes that with more than 70% of the energy recovered from

each launch, thanks to a design design that would allow kinetic energy to be

converted back to electricity during the deceleration phase after the launch. Now look, they go on

to mention that this would be part of their plans to develop space mining systems aimed specifically

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