Before You Begin: Building the Lunar Economy

A reader’s introduction to the series, its source notes, imagined scenarios, article order and companion collection.

Introduction · Series date: September 7, 2026

This series examines the businesses, discoveries, skills, services, and wider opportunities a functioning lunar base could make possible. Its 60 numbered articles are arranged in twelve parts, with five articles in each part.

How to read the scenarios

Future scenes, proposed business arrangements, and numerical examples are illustrations, not reports of an established base, actual prices, or investment forecasts. Source links support factual background. The economic reasoning and scenarios are editorial analysis. Demonstrations, development programs, and operating services are distinguished throughout.

Source note

Source access and consequential factual claims were rechecked September 7, 2026. The review includes a newer NASA account of PRIME-1’s actual results. Deloitte’s framework and figures were checked against the saved report, including its economic appendix. The public PDF did not load during that check; the publisher’s report announcement offers an alternate starting point.

The date above describes the manuscript's recorded source review. Mission plans and other changing claims remain tied to the evidence available for that edition. The articles' imagined customers, contracts, prices, and future work sites should be read in the context stated in their own text.

Keep different kinds of value visible

The collection explores both economic activity and wider gains. A research result, a useful public service, a commercial sale, and an opportunity to take part are not interchangeable measures. The articles repeatedly return to the questions of who benefits, who pays, what alternatives exist, and what evidence could show that an expected gain has actually occurred.

Choose a route through the articles

Start with the next link below and continue through all twelve parts, or return to the contents to choose a topic. The article numbers and order follow the supplied collection. This reader introduction is separate from the 60 articles.

For the preceding practical questions, read Building a Home on the Moon. That companion series considers what a lasting base would require before the activities imagined here could depend on it.