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A possible answer to the marketing questions can be
found in the business of meteorites.
Meteorite collecting has in fact become
a booming business. See the meteorite
subsection of Collecting
Space for access to the many websites devoted
to meteorite collecting and selling.
Interest in meteorites expanded significantly
after the announcement by NASA researchers that a meteorite
from Mars may indicate possible Martian bacterial life.
The meteorite business thus provides
probably the best model for a future space rock enterprise.
There are many different kinds of meteorites
and, as expected, the most common bring low prices,
and the rarest bring very high prices.
These sites sell lunar meterorites slices
or small pieces for several thousand dollars per gram:
Often the samples are not especially attractive,
so the value can assume to be entirely due to their
rareness and the cachet of being from the Moon or Mars.
At the other end of the scale, common
meteorites can be had for a few dollars per gram. In
this case, the appearance becomes more important. For
those meteorites with some esthetic qualities, they
can be incorporated into various products as these sites
indicate:
So from the meteorite market I would conclude
that there would in fact be a sizable market for lunar
materials.
However, to keep prices up as supply increases,
a lunar mining company should 1) become the De Beers
of lunar rocks: control the supply while developing
the market for different types of lunar materials and
for a range of products. 2) prospect for lunar rocks
with particularly interesting esthetic values.
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