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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday June 08 2016, @09:17AM
from the build-a-space-elevator-on-the-moon dept.
from the build-a-space-elevator-on-the-moon dept.
NASA seems hell bent to go to Mars, but can't afford to on its own.
Its international partners have no stomach for that — they would would rather return to our moon and build a base there for further exploration.
Doesn't going back to the moon make more sense? Build a base on the moon, and use its low gravity and possible water at the poles as propellant for further space exploration?
Why not the moon first?
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/7/11868840/moon-return-journey-to-mars-nasa-congress-space-policy
Links:
From NASA itself, in 2008: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/series/moon/why_go_back.html
The all-knowing, ever-trustworthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon
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Should We Skip Mars for Now and Go to the Moon Again?
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For recreational use only.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 08 2016, @05:42PM
Pretty much agree with this, other than the dismissive treatment of a return to the moon.
The moon is a perfect test-bed for growing things, and low gravity survival, artificial gravity testing, etc, etc, etc.
In addition it is close enough to serve as an industrial base, from which launching stuff is way cheaper.
We could build structures above and below the surface by sintering local materials.
The single biggest issue will be landing a power plant (or two) large enough to provide for heat, power, water extraction, sintering, smelting, welding and 3D printing.
With spare parts only a month away (maybe mere minutes away with 3D printing) the moon is doable, unlike mars where the first minor breakage probably means a mad scramble that can't succeed for three to six months in the best possible scenario.
Best of all, it will teach us how to get along without an atmosphere, because dreams of building an atmosphere on mars just aren't going to come true.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 08 2016, @10:37PM
This is so comically optimistic. We are going to be on Earth forever until it melts or ices over. There is no possible scenario where humans will live anywhere else even in our solar system. Space is utterly inhospitable and we are absolutely suited to this niche. We might send robots or lichen or bacteria but we are HOME.
A power plant on the moon? How about putting a power plant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? That would be easier, and just as useful. I.e. absolutely useless.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday June 09 2016, @02:28AM
Not really. The Moon is a perfect staging base to launch out into the rest of the Solar System. Every resource we are going to run out of here is out there, except dead dino. We are going to go get that abundance eventually. The first people will be strictly out there for the money, intending to get rich and then come home, like a lot of people do today working in nasty places. Eventually though there will be enough people out there that a few places will become hospitable enough that people will decide to call it home. And it is actually easier to deal with the cold empty nothing of space than the bottom of the ocean.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday June 09 2016, @03:31AM
There is no possible scenario where humans will live anywhere else even in our solar system.
Science fiction throws those out all the time. Your scenario of the impossibility of permanent human habitation of space is just as much a fiction. Given that humanity has a habit of doing impossible things (which turn out to not actually be impossible), I really don't see the point of your argument.
Space is utterly inhospitable and we are absolutely suited to this niche.
We already live in space. The engineering problem here is not to figure out how to survive in space, but figure out how to build enough of the environment of Earth to turn the "utterly inhospitable" into hospitable.
A power plant on the moon? How about putting a power plant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? That would be easier, and just as useful. I.e. absolutely useless.
Unless, of course, you need it to power something on the Moon or at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, then it becomes useful. It's worth noting that we've already powered things on the Moon and at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. They were useful when we did that too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 09 2016, @04:02AM
How about putting a power plant at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? That would be easier, and just as useful. I.e. absolutely useless.
As an aside, the area of the Mariana Trench is about 15 square kilometers. It's a small nook on Earth. The Moon has an area of almost 15 million square km. I find it interesting how the people talking about the impossibility of space colonization pick the most provincial examples on Earth.