The Dedicated Infrastructure and Architecture for Near-Earth Astronautics (DIANA) is a design concept for a self-sustainable lunar city near the de Gerlache crater, on the lunar South Pole, comprising tourists and astronauts alike. We also discuss how LUVMI-X fits into the diverse landscape of lunar missions under development. We describe the rover and instrument design, the mission's operational concept, and a preliminary landing-site analysis. Its central element is a compact rover equipped with complementary instrumentation capable of investigating both the surface and shallow subsurface of illuminated and shadowed areas at the lunar south pole. In this paper, we present LUVMI-X, a mission concept intended to address the shortage of in situ data on volatiles on the Moon that results from a recently concluded design study. On a more fundamental level, we currently lack sufficiently detailed data to fully understand the origins of lunar water and its migration to the polar regions. Our current knowledge about the distribution and concentration of water and other volatiles in the lunar rocks and regolith is, however, too limited to assess the feasibility and economic viability of resource-extraction efforts. With the return of humans to the lunar surface on the horizon, the use of locally available resources to support long-term and sustainable exploration programs, encompassing both robotic and crewed elements, has moved into focus of public and private actors alike. The search for exploitable deposits of water and other volatiles at the Moon's poles has intensified considerably in recent years, due to the renewed strong interest in lunar exploration. Space-based economy from which the world economy, and possibly also the world's Way, gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help 'bootstrap' a Underpin a future industrial capability within the Earth-Moon system. These are relevant to a hierarchy of futureĪpplications, beginning with the use of lunar materials to facilitate humanĪctivities on the Moon itself, and progressing to the use of lunar resources to (notwithstanding claims sometimes made for the 3He isotope, which I find to beĮxaggerated), the Moon nevertheless does possess abundant raw materials thatĪre of potential economic interest. Valuable to drive a lunar resource extraction industry on its own It is difficult to identify any single lunar resource that will be sufficiently In this paper I review what isĬurrently known about economically exploitable resources on the Moon, whileĪlso stressing the need for continued lunar exploration. As the Earth's closest celestial neighbour, the Moon is sure toįeature prominently in these developments.

Solar System might in future be used to supplement the economic resources of There is growing interest in the possibility that the resource base of the

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