Lunar pitchblende

I was aware of some thorium on the nearside of the Moon; a couple days ago we heard from the farside. There's a +10K hotspot, directly opposite us.

This extra ten degrees Celsius/Kelvin is considered from a batholith: an upwelling of granite, not basalt. Basically it's a big but now dead volcanic core.

The claim is Granites are nearly absent in the Solar System outside of Earth. On that much, I call shens. Like Earth, Mars has volcanoes and even (once) had a hydrosphere; sure enough, it's of little effort to find articles about granites over there. Venus has plenty of igneous rocks which should include granites, although nobody's landing there for awhile. As for Mercury, mayyybe we should await BepiColombo before we make sweeping comments about what rocks it does or does not own.

Luna is however closer to us. Also the pitchblende in this granite looks like it's excellently placed to generate energy where it can't be beamed from Earth (however inefficiently). Want that plutonium Orion Drive where Earthlings can't see it? Here is where you mine the fuel and launch the rocket. With much fewer pulses needed; maybe even less critical-mass (antiprotons can be harvested from Earth orbit).

The usual warnings against radiation apply but, it's the Moon; it's already irradiated. UPDATE 7/20 Even here we might just raise everything to a shipyard at TLL2, by space-elevator.