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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday January 24 2016, @12:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the time-to-invent-the-Botany-Bay dept.

The recent demonstrations of successful rocket recovery by Blue Origin and SpaceX herald a new era of space exploration and development. We can expect, as rocket stages routinely return for reuse from the fringes of space, that the cost of space travel will fall dramatically.

Some in the astronautics community would like to settle the Moon; others have their eyes set on Mars. Many would rather commit to the construction of solar power satellites, efforts to mine and/or divert Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), or construct enormous cities in space such as the O'Neill Lagrange Point colonies.

But before we can begin any or all of these endeavors, we need to answer some fundamental questions regarding human life beyond the confines of our home planet. Will humans thrive under lunar or martian gravity? Can children be conceived in extraterrestrial environments? What is the safe threshold for human exposure to high-Z galactic cosmic rays (GCRs)?

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=34781


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 24 2016, @05:46PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 24 2016, @05:46PM (#294010) Journal

    IMO, factories on the moon, and habitats in space will necessarily grow together. The moon has resources that we can reach far more economically than any other place in the system, so yes we definitely need to put people and automated factories there. But, a moon colony can never be seen as an end in itself, or we'll be sidetracked for decades or longer.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2016, @09:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2016, @09:12AM (#294254)

    Obvious application for dark side of moon is early warning system for asteroids and other radiotelecope stuff.