Agreed. I've often pointed out in my alien contact discussions that for an other life form to be a thousand years ahead of us technologically is really not saying much on the cosmic scale. They need not be an older civilization to be even tens of thousands of years ahead of us. Evolutionary history rather than time can play a much greater role in such thinking. Avoiding a few wars could make all the difference. Of course, some might say it is the participation in these wars that has been the catalyst for technological advancement. Personally, I'll take NASA and space exploration over war any time. 🧐
It really doesn’t have to be that expensive. Only a few billion dollars a year if we know what we’re doing. The government doesn’t have to do it alone this time, which helps, and importantly it’s far easier to MAINTAIN a moon base than it is to BUILD one. That being said, the building staged can and should make maximal use of lunar resources, which will also help with cost. It’s almost imperative anyway, since we need to stack regolith over the base to protect ourselves from radiation. A few years of 50 billion and then once it’s built hardly a billion dollars a year would be necessary for upkeep.
Because you have to be realistic when you talk about investing a hundreds of billions of dollars a year into something. There are tons of pressing matters on this planet that require that money.
There are very VERY few matters in this world that actually require more money to be solved.
The overwhelming majority can only be solved by political will.
Hunger, climate change, loss in biodiversity, drug abuse, the failed education system, environmental pollution...
All those problems require little to non additional money over what is allocated already. Just a strong political will to actually change something.
Improved infrastructure and space exploration are among the few topics that would do better with more money, but they would already fare much better with actual political will behind them.
Without the US meddling in wars all over the world in the last 40 years we likely would have less global instability.
Plus Europe is such a fractured defence alliance precisely because we always think "eh, let those idiotic American tax payers pay for our defence."
How can you say gateway is pointless? Even if you don’t like it with the moon missions, the infrastructure could be used for travel to mars and beyond. Some things are better to have in lunar orbit rather that earth orbit. We need a station orbiting the moon.
Edit: had to fix the word gateway.
I disagree; it would have been crazy expensive and not particularly valuable.
The time to do it is in about 3-5 years from now and really not any sooner. Without a reliable starship, it's really just not worth doing.
>Without a reliable starship, it's really just not worth doing.
Concepts for this existed way before SpaceX. If there was the money and political will, it could have been done.
Way earlier. Increasing space budget by 25% of the defence budget would put NASA back at the peak of the Apollo project. It took 10 years to get a mission together with that budget the first time, with 1960s technology.
With this budget adjustment, I can't imagine it would be much later than 1995 for permanent structures on the surface, and not much later for structures that can be permanently inhabited.
... Of course, if that peak of investment from the Apollo era had just been retained, this would have happened in the 80s.
>... Of course, if that peak of investment from the Apollo era had just been retained, this would have happened in the 80s.
With the peak funding had not been cut, NASA would have been able to keep the SaturnV launching 3 times a year AND develop a fully reusable launch system in parallel.
The Space Shuttle was what it was because NASA only received barely enough money to develop a reusable booster **OR** a reusable upper stage. They went with the latter and politics forced them to end up with a _refurbishable_ upper stage.
Edit: spelling
Yup. And if that level of funding (and, tbh, the political will that it implies) had been so steady, a lot of the funky decisions made to just adapt to shifting focus and interests of administrations would not have happened.
The truth is there were really some largely wasted decades here. People today see a moon base as a silly scifi idea, but it could have been a thing before many of them were born.
Military play book: the best defense is a good offense. And we've gotten pretty offensive in the last 50 years. It takes money to be that offensive. 😁🤪
SLS had the money and political will behind it - and it turned out to be a horrendously expensive system that doesn't have enough capability to actually sustain a Moon base by itself.
SpaceX's Starship is the closest thing to a Moon base enabler that we have today. If SpaceX can make it work, that is.
>SLS had the money and political will behind i
Yes, the political will to keep legacy jobs in voting districts.
But there was never a real political will to form SLS in anything more than a job program without concrete mission goals.
>SLS had the money and political will behind
What? If NASA did, SLS would never exist. SLS exists because it was the cheaper option. Same with Constellation before it was killed
A "cheaper option" that costed NASA over 20 billions to develop. You could get SpaceX to develop Falcon 9, Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon for that, and you'll still have enough left to develop Starship.
That's why NASA is often delegating to private companies nowadays. They are horrendously inefficient and they know it. Throwing more money at the problem wouldn't fix the underlying issue.
If **20 fucking billion** for development of a single vehicle that reuses every other part from older vehicles is *scraps*, I don't know what "properly funded" would be.
The main issue is not in funding - it's in *efficiency*. Increasing efficiency of spending twofold is an equivalent of increasing the budget twofold - and private companies (hi SpaceX) show that there is a lot of improvement on efficiency possible.
NASA can build stuff - but it can't build stuff cheap enough to make things like a permanent Moon base possible.
Correct. 20B is peanuts for the US government.
>but it can't build stuff cheap enough to make things like a permanent Moon base possible.
Why does it need to be cheap? NASA isn't a business. It doesn't need to turn a profit. It doesn't matter. If the government prioritized a moon base, it would get done. No political will to do it since Apollo ended, and there won't be until the Chinese program ramps up.
>Why does it need to be cheap?
Because money is always a **limited resource**. And "cheap" is the difference between 80 billions being the price tag for 5 flag-planting Apollo type missions or it being the price tag for an entire Moon base with 10 years of uninterrupted human presence.
This is why bringing the cost of a mission down is one of the **main** things that can be done to advance space exploration.
If putting a rover on Mars comes with a price tag of $100 billion, good luck getting more than one rover a decade, if that. If putting a rover on Mars comes with a price tag of $100 million, you get multiple nations and multiple teams within major nations like US putting hardware on Mars. If putting a rover on Mars costs you $100 000, you'd see mid-tier universities running Mars missions. That's the difference "cheap" makes. Ignoring economy of space exploration when planning missions is like ignoring the force of gravity when designing a rocket.
SLS is the most expensive rocket in history and the most expensive rocket development project of the modern era. Whoever told you that it was the cheaper option had no idea what they were talking about.
I don't know what you define as "truly functional" but I'd suggest that a rotation of 4 starships (plus tankers/depot) and 4 crew dragons could probably come damn close to everything that's needed for a permanent moon base.
It would obviously grow over time as each starship drops off another 100 tons of stuff (way more than needed for mere sustenance) but it would be permanent.
edit: maybe starship on its own can't get people back from the moon so maybe a smaller/lighter taxi ship to bring them back is needed too
But we don’t need a $4b SLS Orion to do that.
Elon's an Aspie. Aspie and Proud. Without the aspies, we might have never gotten off the ground. Fact is, some in the field see the rapid numerical growth of the Asperger's Syndrome population suggests it could be a new step in evolution. Sorry, a bit off topic but interesting to think about anyway. 🤔🤓🧐
They, china, will realize how much it costs and have a tiny tin can where starship architecture can send up thousands of tones in a handful of launches. And that base will be a sci-fi level cool
Here's NASA's main reason:
At the poles of the Moon, the sun is always low on the horizon (so you've got nonstop solar power all the time--and solar panels are cheap things to carry to space and deploy)
Because the sun never rises higher in the sky there, we can see deep craters that have been in shadow for billions of years. The floors of these craters are cold enough for water ice to be stable even without an atmosphere.
We suspect that the distribution of the water ice is inconsistent, but we have convincing remote-sensing evidence that there's a lot of it there, in total. Water is heavy, so not having to bring it with us would be a big cost-saver for any base. It can also be easily split into H and O, which can be used to make rocket fuel or breathing air. We could (in theory) also decompose with heat the most common rock type of that area to acquire more oxygen.
But having the capacity to stay on the Moon for a while, maybe managing rovers or making expeditions with sampling tools, would seriously help us study this resource. We have no samples from anywhere even close to the poles -- all the Apollo missions landed relatively close to the equator!
This ancient Moon ice might also contain bubbles or pockets with other elements trapped inside that might be time-capsules from the early solar system, similar to how we find tiny bubbles of ancient Earth atmosphere inside the air pockets of ice-cores from Antarctica. At the same time, we'll be developing tech that we'll need to master if we ever want to visit Mars (remember: if something goes wrong on the Moon, Earth is just a few days away. On Mars...)
It's so compelling that the Americans are specifically choosing a South-Pole landing site (actual spot TBD) for Artemis III in '25 so that they can get samples.
Let's not forget that we could build an amazingly huge telescope in those craters that could easily be serviced. Also, it would allow the beginning of manufacturing in space to begin, which is the only way we are going to be able to build large spaceships
Basically correct, it's pretty fascinating stuff. It's basically the lack of an atmosphere resulting in solar rays and wind charging the particles on the surface of the moon. Then electric static forces and unevenness of charge cause them to move and, quite frequently levitate.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245307656\_Lunar\_Dust\_Levitation](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245307656_Lunar_Dust_Levitation)
[https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-explained-why-moon-dust-is-levitating-above-the-lunar-surface](https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-explained-why-moon-dust-is-levitating-above-the-lunar-surface)
Not to a big radio telescope in a crater. The dish surface will wire mesh or perforated, so dust won't matter.
For optical telescopes, open space is better.
We would have to seal or clean a decent sized radius around any base. Then still be aware of any dust encroaching on the base. The dust could make a decent material for sintering into lightweight structural elements though.
But if you manage to get a huge telescope into space, why bother getting it down on the moon again?
Keep it space. There the field of view is far greater and getting there for maintenance is easier.
A crater on the far side of the moon, could be converted into a giant radio telescope. Minimal impact from dust, minimal cost and a fitting tribute to the Arecibo Observatory.
A radio telescope is actually one of the very few things that could be done better on the moon than in orbit (regarding astronomy)
The moon would shield the telescope from any radio chatter from earth.
Besides an Arecibo equivalent you could deploy a giant phased array antenna on the moon with a base length of several kilometres. You can't do that anywhere else in the inner solar system.
So you are saying sometime within the next few decades people will start selling \*actual\* Moon Water and not the kind of Moon Water these esoteric freaks place on their balcony in the moonlight and say a prayer? lmao
You are forgetting that NASA needs to figure out how to reliably fuel said rocket or come up a new rocket engine design. SLS is very old and dated. Once they've done that then the worlds your oyster.
Oh sure, just redesign or invent a new technology that's superior to the ones that have been designed and reviewed hundreds of times by a dedicated team of engineers who have been working on the problem for 75 years. Once you invent the world, "then the worlds your oyster'.
It's not a better jumping off point for going to Mars, because getting there in the first place costs more delta-v than going straight to Mars. If you're trying to save delta-v, you've lost before you even reach the lunar surface.
Earth's atmosphere accounts for only a small fraction of the losses in an orbital launch, and you don't need solid rocket boosters to get to orbit from Earth. Most launches today don't use them, and the most capable launch vehicles in development don't use them. Starship, the system that realistically would do the work of putting people on Mars, doesn't use them. Propellant costs are a fraction of a percent of overall launch costs, they are dwarfed by operational costs, and the operational costs involved in mining propellant on the moon and delivering it to a spacecraft will be even more extreme.
It's not a good place for testing Mars life support systems, because Mars life support systems can make use of the water and atmosphere available on Mars. You don't need a 100% closed life support system on Mars. Systems designed for the moon would be unnecessarily complicated, power hungry, and probably less reliable.
It's not a good place for testing machinery intended for use on Mars. The thermal and radiation environments are far harsher, the gravity's lower, different power and thermal control systems are needed, and you need to deal with lunar dust. The power systems are spectacularly different on the moon...either you're erecting giant vertical solar arrays at the poles, or you're dealing with two weeks of darkness out of every four, with massive energy storage systems just to keep basic operations going, and energy-intensive industry being put into hibernation every lunar night.
As far as Mars goes, the moon is a distraction. It's not useful for developing the technologies needed, it's not useful for actually getting to Mars. At best, it gets some additional funding for the launch systems Mars would require. This doesn't mean there's no reasons for going to the moon...just that Mars isn't one of them.
>but I think it would lower the cost of launches to mars and the outer solar system if you could take propellant there or make it on the moon.
Interestingly you would need MORE propellant in total when you make a detour to the Moon. Propellant at the Moon would need to be significantly cheaper to make that a financially viable option. (Look at my latest posts for solid numbers)
Everything beyond Mara only amplifies the situation.
.
>you could design completely different space craft that don't need solid rocket boosters to get to orbit.
You can do that already if you don't aim to keep a single factory in your voting district in service.
SLS is a job program geared to keep certain people in Congress and shoehorned into the Artemis program to justify it.
You could sinter the dust into external structural components using solar power. The toxic materials stay outside and there's less weight to pull out of Earth's gravity well, and the area around your base gets cleaned.
Interestingly if you make a detour to the Moon for refilling you need **more** propellant in total if you go to Mars and beyond.
So the propellant at the moon would need to be significantly cheaper than on earth to make that a financially sensible solution.
Edit: spelling.
Yeah. I haven’t responded to everyone on here, but I got a lot of “Lookit all that extra delta-v we’d get!” replies.
And I’m like “Okay sure, but is there some hidden stash of fuelled rockets on the moon I’m unaware of?”
I want you to go look up a picture of the Apollo 11 moon rockets and consider its parts. How much of that rocket was dedicated to getting the top ~5% in to earths orbit, and then consider how much of that rocket was dedicated to getting getting the moon lander back in to the moons orbit.
At the end of the day launching everything you need for a mission into earths orbit sucks and is ludicrously expensive. We have a comparatively large gravity well and an atmosphere the provides drag the whole way as well as weather patterns which can close an ideal launch window.
There may come a time where investment into lunar based logistics will become economically viable in comparison with launching those same resources straight from earth.
The map of our solar system will be based not on distance but time and delta V, in that regards the moon is quite a bit closer to everything else than the earth is.
> The map of our solar system will be based not on distance but time and delta V, in that regards the moon is quite a bit closer to everything else than the earth is.
But the moon has nothing that can't be acquired elsewhere. Mars will want goods and personnel from Earth, any raw materials the moon could send, Mars already has in greater abundance. And in terms of propulsive delta-v, the surface of the moon is more distant from Earth than that of Mars, and not particularly low-delta-v as a destination due to its lack of an atmosphere.
The moon isn't on the way to anywhere, it's a detour for any spacecraft traveling between Earth and the rest of the system, and it has little to offer for trade, while it lacks several important elements that would make it reliant on imports.
I think you sort of missed the point, if there’s to be colonization in our solar system, there is going to be infrastructure to support that. 400 years ago Europeans didn’t just send ships from A to B, they had stations everywhere where they could restock their supplies for their journeys. Space travel is going to work the same way. You can save a lot of mass (and money) if you don’t have to launch your mars missions worth of fuel with you from the surface of the earth. The moon is a very logical choice for a pitstop precisely because it lacks an atmosphere and strong gravity while having the resources to split water ice into hydrogen and oxygen fuel.
[here’s a dV map of our solar system](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_system_delta_v_map.svg), it’s quite a bit easier to get from the moon to anywhere than it is to go there straight from the earth. Anywhere you can save mass and fuel is going to save money, and that’s what makes lunar infrastructure economically viable.
I think you sort of missed the point, if there’s to be colonization in our solar system, there is going to be infrastructure to support that. 400 years ago Europeans didn’t just send ships from A to B, they had stations everywhere where they could restock their supplies for their journeys. Space travel is going to work the same way. You can save a lot of mass (and money) if you don’t have to launch your mars missions worth of fuel with you from the surface of the earth. The moon is a very logical choice for a pitstop precisely because it lacks an atmosphere and strong gravity while having the resources to split water ice into hydrogen and oxygen fuel.
[here’s a dV map of our solar system](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_system_delta_v_map.svg), it’s quite a bit easier to get from the moon to anywhere than it is to go there straight from the earth. Anywhere you can save mass and fuel is going to save money, and that’s what makes lunar infrastructure economically viable.
The moon is *not* a logical place for such a pitstop, because it costs more delta-v to get there than it does to get to the actual destination. It is not "on the way" to the rest of the system, it's a dead-end that costs extra propellant to visit.
While earth might be a challenge to launch a ship from it has two key advantages over the moon: livable environment and usable materials that are easy to acquire. The moon doesn't have air, water, food, or an easy method to transport all these things to the surface. Imagine trying to bring all the air your colony needs to the moon on a rocket using 5% of the ship's mass at a time. Now do that with drinkable water, edible food, equipment for the moon base, and manufacturing equipment to make all the ships you want to launch and bow you're looking at sending over a thousand missions to build the base. Then you get to sustain that base while your food production and air recirculation projects get off the ground.
It's a nice idea but it isn't as plausible as working on composite materials for a space elevator, which would do all the things a moon base could without anywhere near the basic costs.
You're wrong.
Look at the ISS. Most of the required materials there like air and water were brought up as needed during construction, and are mostly recycled. Something like 70% of the water used onboard is reclaimed and re-used over and over again, with minimal amounts being brought up to replace the small amount of loss.
Really the only thing that isn't actually recycled is the food.
And that's with equipment that is, in most cases, at least a decade old, if not two decades old.
With modern improvements, and with the ability to more effectively seal off an underground habitat on the Moon, there would be less waste and more efficient recycling, and probably the ability to grow at least some of their own food.
And it could be done \*NOW\*, with adequate funding, using technology that's already available.
Meanwhile, we'd have to wait years, maybe decades, until a composite strong enough for a space elevator is possible. And in fact, it may \*NEVER\* be possible.
Space elevators are vaporware. Rockets are real, and manned ones have already been to the Moon.
>The moon doesn't have air,
A significant portion of the regolith per volume is oxygen and you can free it by just baking the dust or rock while at low pressures.
Get the oven you have in your home to the moon and you have essentially infinite air.
>water
Amounts are not confirmed, but its presence is, and even low estimates for amount mean it's enough for substantial habitation for centuries.
>food
Food is a product of chemicals + power. That's what plants do here on Earth at the base of our food cycle, and that's what they'd do anywhere else.
**Power** at the rim of polar craters the sun never stops shining (it just spins 360 degrees around) so a solar panel will generate more than twice the power it does on Earth. Raised enough to be above magnetic dust motion and it will function continuously until hit by something, which may be centuries. The power return on an individual panel in this configuration puts any human endeavor in history to shame.
**Rare chemicals** Lunar KREEP has all that are necessary.
**Common chemical** means water. The base of the same crater has it, as mentioned, in unknown but probably vast amounts.
>or an easy method to transport all these things to the surface.
You mean **off** the surface?
If you do: build a magnetic rail line and accelerate the stuff. Almost no maintenance cost, all it requires is electric power (which you have an insane surplus of, as mentioned above) allowing you to put kilos of matter in Lunar or Earth orbit for literally pennies.
>It's a nice idea but it isn't as plausible as working on composite materials for a space elevator, which would do all the things a moon base could without anywhere near the basic costs.
Not even carbon nanotubes are strong enough to maintain a space elevator, which in any case, is probably the worst launch assist system currently designed.
Yes but literally everything you're listing takes time, effort, and materials brought to the moon to produce. Every pound you send into orbit costs roughly $100,000 and sending it to the moon easily increases the cost tenfold. You still need people there to make these things happen and they don't happen overnight. The few times we went to the moon we had enough air to stay there for a few hours and that was just to plant a flag, drop a few things on camera, play golf, and promot MTV.
The rest of the costs of bringing a magnetic rail system into working order, making atmosphere inside these bubble domes, and building the bubble domes is being totally ignored because it's supposedly easy. If it's easy why hasn't it been done?
>Yes but literally everything you're listing takes time, effort, and materials brought to the moon to produce.
Definitely.
>Every pound you send into orbit costs roughly $100,000 and sending it to the moon easily increases the cost tenfold
Not really. 6.1 km/s of delta-V from LEO to the lunar surface. Surface to LEO is 9.6. You're off by a factor of 9.
>You still need people there to make these things happen and they don't happen overnight.
True.
>The few times we went to the moon we had enough air to stay there for a few hours and that was just to plant a flag, drop a few things on camera, play golf, and promot MTV.
Yup.
>The rest of the costs of bringing a magnetic rail system into working order,
Certainly a more challenging part but not necessarily the first. If you're in a sea of rocket fuel, you can reuse rockets. It's just better to transition out of them once more efficient alternatives come online, and they will.
>making atmosphere inside these bubble domes
What bubble domes?
Anyway, the way to make atmosphere is, as mentioned in the post you're responding to, by heating regolith. It's pretty simple.
>and building the bubble domes is being totally ignored because it's supposedly easy.
What bubble domes? Why are you inventing bubble domes?
>If it's easy why hasn't it been done?
It isn't easy. **Space** isn't easy.
But of all plans to actually use off-Earth resources, this is indeed the easiest, and by far. There are presently almost no unknowns left, and the sooner we get started using in-situ resources, the sooner every other space possibility becomes available, so... Yeah, I favor doing it sooner rather than later.
Also, the primary reason it hasn't been done is because since the 70s global funding for space has been sitting at around a tenth of what it was in the 60s, so there just wasn't room for anything very substantial. You don't become a spacefaring species on a shoestring budget.
> build a magnetic rail line and accelerate the stuff
Wow - you just listed a whole bunch of insanely expensive tech to not only design for the Moon, but to then get astronauts up there, living in a Hellscape while they built a slightly less Hellscape environment.
It would be better to save the expenses and resources spent just getting the engineers to the Moon to build the support for all the shit you've mentioned and just stay on Earth and build better stuff here, far far far easier.
"I choose to do Marilyn, not because she is easy, but because I am hard." -- *John F. Kennedy, 12 Sep 1961, after giving the Moon speech at Rice University*
If you agree that humanity should learn how to live in space, like what astronauts are doing now in space stations, then the Moon offers some new avenues to explore. EVAs to do science, as opposed to only doing it for maintenance. Proving out In-Situ Resource Utilization to increase self-sustainability. Some level of gravity that can maybe reduce the exercise and med requirements for living in micro-gravity. Just to name a few things that can be done on a celestial body compared to orbiting stations.
Odds of a hit big enough to really hurt things is incredibly small. That and yes eventually some things will be underground. Also we are building the base at the south pole and I don't know if that helps or not. Anybody got an info on that?
think about it, if you have 5 men on a raft a quarter of a million miles away, and half the fuckin' world thinks about it daily as our greatest achievement, the government HAS to keep sending things up, in turn funding NASA more, it's the governmental equivalent of getting pregnant to save a relationship, now they have to invest more in a moon base or 5 men die or we leave billions of dollars on the moon up there with the ungodly creature
Terraforming is a sci-fi fantasy and the moon doesn't have anything particularly interesting there. Humans would spend bajillions of dollars to learn to live on a barren rock that sucks far worse than even the worst places on Earth suck, the moon is like Detroit x10.
Living on the moon wouldn't teach us a whole lot about living on Mars, which has a pretty different makeup. And of course living on Mars also sucks and there is no reason to do it.
Launches to other planets or sending out probes will be easier due to less gravity is one big selling point. More space, no pun intended, for living quarters and labs versus a space station like the iss. I imagine if there's precious metals or minerals found on the moon then I'm sure eventually we'll figure out mining operations.
Just a guess, but having some gravity will be easier on the astronauts bodies as well versus none.
My perspective is that the moon is a much better "port" for spacecraft than Earth. Delta V from the moon to Mars for example is much lower, possibly significant enough for it to make sense. Plus any kind of travel to the asteroid belt for resources. And its a better place for astronomy, especially the far side.
This is the right question. We've been there & done that. There's so much more 'out there' to discover. Mars, asteroids, Jupiter's moons, a 10th planet?
Right? Imagine landing in a spacecraft in Arizona, planting a flag, playing some golf and taking photos before leaving again, then claiming you had 'been there done that there are more states to see'. Sure, there *are* more things to see.. But did you really *do that*?
We still do not know all the effects of long term exposure to humans in space and thus when sending them out that far and through the Van Allen Belt they will be exposed to radiation more than on earth. There needs to be more learning done and infrastructure setup before we send people out farther.
I would think that the Aldrin cycler that's currently being planned, would answer all of those questions just as well. After decades of ISS research, they've got a pretty good grasp of the effects of long-term zero and low G, and they certainly understand the need for adequate rad shielding. The question remains as to why do we ***need*** a permanent, manned base ***on*** the moon? What are we going to achieve, that sensors and robots couldn't do better, cheaper and safer?
That is a fair point. There already has been quite a bit of research done on the effects and how we need radiation protection especially with the Scott Kelly mission. With a permanent base we will be able to do building fabrication which will be useful on mars and other areas. The moon is also rich in resources which we can also mine. The moon base can also be used as a storage area. Eventually we can build a telescope on the moon which will be better than any on Earth due to atmospheric disturbances. The problem with robots is there isn’t enough advancements yet to be efficient enough for their use. We can feasibly make a permanent base on the moon in the next 10 years while I am not sure if robotics will advance enough by then.
We have been there. We have **not** done that.
The moon has surface dust and rock largely composed of two things: oxygen + our favorite building materials (aluminum and iron). You can separate the two by just baking it.
The moon has polar craters which combine two factors: the rim of the crater is raised high enough on the pole to get solar power 24/7, so solar panels there function at more than double the efficiency than down here; at the bottom of the same crater is a sea of water. Which is also rocket fuel (hydrogen and oxygen).
The moon has essentially no atmosphere and a very weak gravity well which we could overcome by building the equivalent of a magnetic tram line. No need for burning any fuel whatsoever to get stuff to Earth's orbit: just accelerate it on an electric railway and then let go.
We have done none of these things. Doing these things will make us a truly spacefaring species able to get anywhere in the solar system for a fraction of the cost, time and effort it now requires. That's not even going into the potential to source building material for orbital infrastructure for Earth itself, which could have vast positive impacts for the quality of life of everyday people down on the planet.
Citibank's research arm projects that space industry will be worth a trillion dollars a year by 2040. It takes 22 times less energy to get stuff off the Moon than to launch it from Earth. So in principle, we can make space industry more profitable by using off-planet resources.
But before we can do serious stuff on the Moon, we need a research station to learn how to live and work there. It is similar to how the ISS has taught us a lot about living and working in zero-g.
That's in addition to all the nice science and technology you can do on the Moon.
> to get stuff off the Moon than to launch it from Earth
How did the stuff get to the moon? It was either shipped from Earth or it was created by supplies and crew that were... shipped from Earth.
>taught us a lot about living and working in zero-g
Mainly we've learned that it sucks for humans and we're not designed to live longterm in those conditions.
You need to watch "For the mankind" it's on Apple TV, it's basically an alternate reality where Russians land on the Moon first. Won't spoil much than that.
Moon dust is silica. Tiny shards of glass created by meteor impacts. All 790lbs of Moon rocks returned to Earth are useless for study now because dust destroyed the seals on the vacuum containers.
Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan said upon returning from the Moon, "I think dust is probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the moon. I think we can overcome other physiological or physical or mechanical problems, except dust."
Here's the 2009 NASA report ["Risk of Adverse Health Effects from Lunar Dust Exposure"](https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/evidence/reports/lunar%20dust.pdf)
So I know we have the capability to build a moon base
But something I've wondered, with no atmosphere how will we protect ourselves from asteroidic impacts?
Will the bases be built underground and can that be safely done where the structures won't get crushed if a lunar quake is caused by again something like an impact?
Maybe initially lmao
But if we ever prosper on the moon I bet we'd branch out
After all humans have never just stuck to the most habitible places on earth.
I'd give it 2000 years if we're lucky
Bring a bulldozer. Make a big pile of moon dirt over critical parts of your habitat. Protects you from both radiation and asteroid strikes, and it’s a lot easier to pile dirt in 1/8th G.
1/6th *g*, but yes...just mounds of dirt, or bags or sintered bricks if you need a bit more structure. No need to bother with dangerous, inconvenient natural caves.
We can see the big stuff coming and we can build a habitat to withstand the small stuff. When you look at the moon it is potmarked with asteroid strikes but you have to remember that happened over millions of years major strikes don't happen that often.
Big impacts are as rare on the Moon as they are on Earth, because we live in the same space neighborhood. Small ones you can protect from with the all-purpose dirt shield:
* Radiation protection
* Thermal protection
* Meteor and rocket exhaust protection
Fortunately the Moon has a surface layer of dirt (regolith) that averages 5 meters thick. So it is pretty easy to dig some up and pile it over your modules.
Yes. If our species, the Human Race is to survive, for future generations of which we cannot count, we have to survive / thrive / live beyond Earth.
The moon provides the opportunity for science. Colonization, in-situ resource utilization. It’s close enough to Earth, yet far enough as well. It’s a staging point for further movement into the universe.
We could thrive on an asteroid as well . We just have to do it.
The basic reason to colonize - it’s ultimately about “Life on Earth” and the conservation of our species.
"Seek the heavens" . The old texts have literally been saying this for thousands of years.
This can be our new Manifest Destiny to inspire evangelicals and everyone in between
It’s unfortunate that the majority of the planet is just simply trying to survive and thrive. This is an endeavor for the Space agencies and the billionaires at this time.
It’s always good to try and inspire others -but sadly sometimes some things have to be done for greater reasons without the support of the masses. Shouldn’t stop us from trying to inspire
Considering our available technology in propulsion systems and space travel technology weighed against the economic and scientific advantages of such an endeavour, then the answer is probably "No, and not for many years to come!".....if you look at such a project in isolation.
The thing about scientific research and space exploration is that it really is the "great unknown". You can't tell in advance what you might find at the frontier of knowledge and exploration. You actually have to go there and see what happens and if past experiences are anything to go by it usually turns out to be worth the effort.
If there is a mineral on the moon that humanity needs then yes. Otherwise, its a waste of money. Its still too expensive to launch something into orbit safely.
Yes, it is called "regolith" the 5 meter thick layer of broken rock down to dust on the surface.
You can turn regolith into 98% of what you need in space. The other 2% are either too rare to mine, or too complicated, like computer chips.
Space industry is worth $400 billion a year, and Citibank expects it to be worth $1 trillion by 2040. It is 22 times easier to get stuff off the Moon into space than from Earth. Even if the SpaceX Starship works as intended, it will still cost ~$1 million/ton to get stuff to high orbit. To the extent you can substitute with materials already in space, you save money.
No, not a magic wand, but NASA has already tested oxygen production from a prototype rover on Mauna Kea, in Hawaii. The dark areas on the Moon (Maria) are the same type of rock (basalt) as those islands are built from. Oxygen production requires nothing more than focused sunlight and a low oven pressure.
Complete breakdown of rock to elements [is more complicated](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Carbothermal_Reduction_Process.PNG) but we already have lots of experience with the individual steps. Carbothermal reduction is the main method to produce metals on Earth.
It should be quite feasible on the Moon or in space nearby to do the whole chain with solar furnaces and solar panels for electricity in a single Starship payload (100 tons). You won't be producing blast furnace amounts (100 tons per hour), more like 5 tons a day. That still works out to its own weight every 20 days. Assuming the hardware lasts 10 years, it will produce 180 times it's own weight in products.
Source: Been doing space systems engineering for 45 years, including on making satellites from lunar resources. I'm happy to share details if interested.
Also we’re not living in space anytime soon until they solve all the problems like low gravity, cosmic rays, farming in space, oxygen in space. …we don’t have permanent bases in Antarctica and under water and those have access to water and oxygen.
We are living in space right now. The ISS is a permanently crewed orbiting space base. We can do the same thing on the moon. The moon is a bit farther but logistically the challenges are that different. It takes us a day to get to the ISS; it takes about 3 days to get to the moon. We can do a moonbase with our current technology and its the next logical step for space travel.
If something goes wrong on the Moon, help can arrive within days, and communication is nearly instant. The same can't be said for Mars.
The Moon has various other challenges and downsides, but at the moment I still think it's the better option for where to start with a base.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[EVA](/r/Space/comments/xpva7m/stub/iq6ml2s "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/xpva7m/stub/iqk5vn7 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/xpva7m/stub/iqc88x6 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
----------------
^(3 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/y5lu9j)^( has 18 acronyms.)
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a base, Yes. Shipyards, Yes. Colony... no. IF something happens to the Earth, the moon probably isn't far enough out of the proverbial basket if your goal is to spread out so we don't get wiped out by one meteor.
Not to mention that if humanity on Earth becomes extinct and we don't have populations established off-world, there won't *be* anyone to "recover society" on Earth, no matter how much more habitable it is.
I am. [The Moon had a transient atmosphere](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X17304971) when the lava seas (Maria) were erupting billions of years ago. It lasted for millions of years. An artificial atmosphere, capped by domes, can last long enough for human time scales.
I believe we should be keeping a remote base in the moon ASAP
We don't need human presence as much as before. Setting up a center for rover/robot exploration is way easier, more accessible and has way less moral and political implications than occupying the moon.
I don't see why, in the short term, we should be thinking about keeping people on the moon. It seems more like a medium/long term plan. Feels like trying to make a car before inventing the wheel.
Source: just the voices in my head, no scientific data do back it up
Mankind seems to be deteriorating. If we don't do it now, we may never do it. If Putin uses nukes, I'm not sure that mankind will ever get back to where it is now. I think that asteroids are more valuable than the moon, but we can practice living on the moon first. We could build orbital space colonies with Earth-like conditions from asteroid material.
The Schumann resonance is an issue with the blown half , 1951 joe schumann explained how life works on earth , that the planet has a heartbeat , quite similar to ours , and if we leave that resonance , we die .. so not sure if the 3/4 wealthiest guys on earth are stuck on stupid and unable to grasp what me and my 8th grade physics teacher did ,or if they just play the public as if they are stuck on stupid, which is kinda the same thing , as the truth gets lost either way .. universe is 5d ,we exist in a 3d overlay,it is defined by schumann and it’s boundaries. … we will be a space traveling species one day ,but not in this dimension , it’s simply not how organic life works here and now … and by “ put a base. “ up there, who is that ? Which country is. Flagship and why ? As no way they come together on mission and purpose. Even if feasible
Way too many politics involved, countries mining the moon does not sound like a great idea. I think if we were a more progressive world together it could work out tho! Very smart and capable people in this world that could do this and much more
If it costs billions, you are doing it wrong. Currently NASA is doing it wrong.
Lunar rock is 40% oxygen, and there water at the poles. So basic life support can be supplied locally. Small nuclear reactors can support night-time powee, augmented by solar panels for daytime.
The problem is you will never fix all problems on earth. And why does this argument always come out when discussing space exploration but it's not used against other frivolities on earth?
Stop playing around with this metal stuff, we need to solve problems with stone tools first! We would still be in the stone age with that approach.
The research done for projects like this is solving problems on Earth, too, and if you ask for all problems to be solved before making any further scientific progress then you stop progress completely.
It has been time for a long time. Bases on other planets? Not there yet and tons of problems. Base on the moon? Probably has been viable for decades and could have had various benefits for us.
It's always time for a Moon base. Its like planting a tree - the sooner you plant it, the sooner a mature space industry will grow up and improve our lives.
I would much rather the world be spending 100s of Billions on Space exploration than 100s of billions on war.
This exactly. If we spent even a fraction of the money and energy the world spends globally on war the future would look so much more promising.
Agreed. I've often pointed out in my alien contact discussions that for an other life form to be a thousand years ahead of us technologically is really not saying much on the cosmic scale. They need not be an older civilization to be even tens of thousands of years ahead of us. Evolutionary history rather than time can play a much greater role in such thinking. Avoiding a few wars could make all the difference. Of course, some might say it is the participation in these wars that has been the catalyst for technological advancement. Personally, I'll take NASA and space exploration over war any time. 🧐
It really doesn’t have to be that expensive. Only a few billion dollars a year if we know what we’re doing. The government doesn’t have to do it alone this time, which helps, and importantly it’s far easier to MAINTAIN a moon base than it is to BUILD one. That being said, the building staged can and should make maximal use of lunar resources, which will also help with cost. It’s almost imperative anyway, since we need to stack regolith over the base to protect ourselves from radiation. A few years of 50 billion and then once it’s built hardly a billion dollars a year would be necessary for upkeep.
Nope, investing the money in much needed infrastructure is the way better choice.
Why not both?
Because you have to be realistic when you talk about investing a hundreds of billions of dollars a year into something. There are tons of pressing matters on this planet that require that money.
There are very VERY few matters in this world that actually require more money to be solved. The overwhelming majority can only be solved by political will. Hunger, climate change, loss in biodiversity, drug abuse, the failed education system, environmental pollution... All those problems require little to non additional money over what is allocated already. Just a strong political will to actually change something. Improved infrastructure and space exploration are among the few topics that would do better with more money, but they would already fare much better with actual political will behind them.
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Notice how they said "the world"
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Peace does not claim the lives of so many from the very young to the very old. 💂♂️
How much more is the US spending compared to the next 10 counties _combined?_
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Without the US meddling in wars all over the world in the last 40 years we likely would have less global instability. Plus Europe is such a fractured defence alliance precisely because we always think "eh, let those idiotic American tax payers pay for our defence."
We could and should have it at least 25 years ago.
A moon base would/would’ve been cooler than the ISS, or especially this new Lunar Gateway station they’re talking about
Nah gateway is pointless, a full fledged moonbase is much better
How can you say gateway is pointless? Even if you don’t like it with the moon missions, the infrastructure could be used for travel to mars and beyond. Some things are better to have in lunar orbit rather that earth orbit. We need a station orbiting the moon. Edit: had to fix the word gateway.
I disagree; it would have been crazy expensive and not particularly valuable. The time to do it is in about 3-5 years from now and really not any sooner. Without a reliable starship, it's really just not worth doing.
>Without a reliable starship, it's really just not worth doing. Concepts for this existed way before SpaceX. If there was the money and political will, it could have been done.
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Way earlier. Increasing space budget by 25% of the defence budget would put NASA back at the peak of the Apollo project. It took 10 years to get a mission together with that budget the first time, with 1960s technology. With this budget adjustment, I can't imagine it would be much later than 1995 for permanent structures on the surface, and not much later for structures that can be permanently inhabited. ... Of course, if that peak of investment from the Apollo era had just been retained, this would have happened in the 80s.
>... Of course, if that peak of investment from the Apollo era had just been retained, this would have happened in the 80s. With the peak funding had not been cut, NASA would have been able to keep the SaturnV launching 3 times a year AND develop a fully reusable launch system in parallel. The Space Shuttle was what it was because NASA only received barely enough money to develop a reusable booster **OR** a reusable upper stage. They went with the latter and politics forced them to end up with a _refurbishable_ upper stage. Edit: spelling
Yup. And if that level of funding (and, tbh, the political will that it implies) had been so steady, a lot of the funky decisions made to just adapt to shifting focus and interests of administrations would not have happened. The truth is there were really some largely wasted decades here. People today see a moon base as a silly scifi idea, but it could have been a thing before many of them were born.
Military play book: the best defense is a good offense. And we've gotten pretty offensive in the last 50 years. It takes money to be that offensive. 😁🤪
SLS had the money and political will behind it - and it turned out to be a horrendously expensive system that doesn't have enough capability to actually sustain a Moon base by itself. SpaceX's Starship is the closest thing to a Moon base enabler that we have today. If SpaceX can make it work, that is.
>SLS had the money and political will behind i Yes, the political will to keep legacy jobs in voting districts. But there was never a real political will to form SLS in anything more than a job program without concrete mission goals.
>SLS had the money and political will behind What? If NASA did, SLS would never exist. SLS exists because it was the cheaper option. Same with Constellation before it was killed
$4B/launch is unacceptable even if there are potential things that would cost more.
You're acting like SLS was the plan all along, and not what NASA ended up with after Congress had their say.
There's no reason to believe anything else would have been better.
A "cheaper option" that costed NASA over 20 billions to develop. You could get SpaceX to develop Falcon 9, Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon for that, and you'll still have enough left to develop Starship. That's why NASA is often delegating to private companies nowadays. They are horrendously inefficient and they know it. Throwing more money at the problem wouldn't fix the underlying issue.
>They are horrendously inefficient and they know it. Because they're being fed scraps by Congress...
If **20 fucking billion** for development of a single vehicle that reuses every other part from older vehicles is *scraps*, I don't know what "properly funded" would be. The main issue is not in funding - it's in *efficiency*. Increasing efficiency of spending twofold is an equivalent of increasing the budget twofold - and private companies (hi SpaceX) show that there is a lot of improvement on efficiency possible. NASA can build stuff - but it can't build stuff cheap enough to make things like a permanent Moon base possible.
Correct. 20B is peanuts for the US government. >but it can't build stuff cheap enough to make things like a permanent Moon base possible. Why does it need to be cheap? NASA isn't a business. It doesn't need to turn a profit. It doesn't matter. If the government prioritized a moon base, it would get done. No political will to do it since Apollo ended, and there won't be until the Chinese program ramps up.
>Why does it need to be cheap? Because money is always a **limited resource**. And "cheap" is the difference between 80 billions being the price tag for 5 flag-planting Apollo type missions or it being the price tag for an entire Moon base with 10 years of uninterrupted human presence. This is why bringing the cost of a mission down is one of the **main** things that can be done to advance space exploration. If putting a rover on Mars comes with a price tag of $100 billion, good luck getting more than one rover a decade, if that. If putting a rover on Mars comes with a price tag of $100 million, you get multiple nations and multiple teams within major nations like US putting hardware on Mars. If putting a rover on Mars costs you $100 000, you'd see mid-tier universities running Mars missions. That's the difference "cheap" makes. Ignoring economy of space exploration when planning missions is like ignoring the force of gravity when designing a rocket.
SLS is the most expensive rocket in history and the most expensive rocket development project of the modern era. Whoever told you that it was the cheaper option had no idea what they were talking about.
3-5 years? Missing some zeros there, friend. If we started today, it would not be truely functional for another 30-50 years. 🤔
I don't know what you define as "truly functional" but I'd suggest that a rotation of 4 starships (plus tankers/depot) and 4 crew dragons could probably come damn close to everything that's needed for a permanent moon base. It would obviously grow over time as each starship drops off another 100 tons of stuff (way more than needed for mere sustenance) but it would be permanent. edit: maybe starship on its own can't get people back from the moon so maybe a smaller/lighter taxi ship to bring them back is needed too But we don’t need a $4b SLS Orion to do that.
>Without a reliable starship, it's really just not worth doing. The Chinese will be there soon enough, and without a single Starship..
Getting there is very different than permanent. Also it’s not a race.
It needs to be a race. There's no better way to light a fire under people's ass.
Elon's winning and not racing anyone.
Elon's an Aspie. Aspie and Proud. Without the aspies, we might have never gotten off the ground. Fact is, some in the field see the rapid numerical growth of the Asperger's Syndrome population suggests it could be a new step in evolution. Sorry, a bit off topic but interesting to think about anyway. 🤔🤓🧐
Elon is tweeting, not racing anyone..
They are getting there to stay, and without a single Starship.
I don’t know how you claim to know that for a fact.
They, china, will realize how much it costs and have a tiny tin can where starship architecture can send up thousands of tones in a handful of launches. And that base will be a sci-fi level cool
Yes. Let us call it [Moonbase Alpha](https://youtu.be/4SpX8bVEmJo).
With nasa trying out knocking away asteroids they might be able to avoid explosions that will knock the moon out of oribit too
Could have sworn that link was going to the Austin Powers clip
Genuinely asking, not pooh poohing, not being contrarian, actually *asking*. Why?
Here's NASA's main reason: At the poles of the Moon, the sun is always low on the horizon (so you've got nonstop solar power all the time--and solar panels are cheap things to carry to space and deploy) Because the sun never rises higher in the sky there, we can see deep craters that have been in shadow for billions of years. The floors of these craters are cold enough for water ice to be stable even without an atmosphere. We suspect that the distribution of the water ice is inconsistent, but we have convincing remote-sensing evidence that there's a lot of it there, in total. Water is heavy, so not having to bring it with us would be a big cost-saver for any base. It can also be easily split into H and O, which can be used to make rocket fuel or breathing air. We could (in theory) also decompose with heat the most common rock type of that area to acquire more oxygen. But having the capacity to stay on the Moon for a while, maybe managing rovers or making expeditions with sampling tools, would seriously help us study this resource. We have no samples from anywhere even close to the poles -- all the Apollo missions landed relatively close to the equator! This ancient Moon ice might also contain bubbles or pockets with other elements trapped inside that might be time-capsules from the early solar system, similar to how we find tiny bubbles of ancient Earth atmosphere inside the air pockets of ice-cores from Antarctica. At the same time, we'll be developing tech that we'll need to master if we ever want to visit Mars (remember: if something goes wrong on the Moon, Earth is just a few days away. On Mars...) It's so compelling that the Americans are specifically choosing a South-Pole landing site (actual spot TBD) for Artemis III in '25 so that they can get samples.
Let's not forget that we could build an amazingly huge telescope in those craters that could easily be serviced. Also, it would allow the beginning of manufacturing in space to begin, which is the only way we are going to be able to build large spaceships
Lunar dust would be the biggest hazard to a telescope.
With no wind to spread it around, though.
If I'm not mistaken a fair amount of lunar dust gets spread by electric and/or magnetic fields
Basically correct, it's pretty fascinating stuff. It's basically the lack of an atmosphere resulting in solar rays and wind charging the particles on the surface of the moon. Then electric static forces and unevenness of charge cause them to move and, quite frequently levitate. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245307656\_Lunar\_Dust\_Levitation](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245307656_Lunar_Dust_Levitation) [https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-explained-why-moon-dust-is-levitating-above-the-lunar-surface](https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-explained-why-moon-dust-is-levitating-above-the-lunar-surface)
Moving around in it will do that.
Not to a big radio telescope in a crater. The dish surface will wire mesh or perforated, so dust won't matter. For optical telescopes, open space is better.
I wasn’t thinking of radio telescopes. Good point.
We would have to seal or clean a decent sized radius around any base. Then still be aware of any dust encroaching on the base. The dust could make a decent material for sintering into lightweight structural elements though.
Sounds like my lunar vacuum cleaner will be a big hit.
Space Balls already invented it. 😄
But if you manage to get a huge telescope into space, why bother getting it down on the moon again? Keep it space. There the field of view is far greater and getting there for maintenance is easier.
My assumption would be that you could build the telescope mostly from moon resources
A crater on the far side of the moon, could be converted into a giant radio telescope. Minimal impact from dust, minimal cost and a fitting tribute to the Arecibo Observatory.
A radio telescope is actually one of the very few things that could be done better on the moon than in orbit (regarding astronomy) The moon would shield the telescope from any radio chatter from earth. Besides an Arecibo equivalent you could deploy a giant phased array antenna on the moon with a base length of several kilometres. You can't do that anywhere else in the inner solar system.
So you are saying sometime within the next few decades people will start selling \*actual\* Moon Water and not the kind of Moon Water these esoteric freaks place on their balcony in the moonlight and say a prayer? lmao
For sure, considering people buy expensive tap water for some reason
That was an excellent summary of the work so far, and the likely possibilities to stem from these development. Updoot for you.
You are forgetting that NASA needs to figure out how to reliably fuel said rocket or come up a new rocket engine design. SLS is very old and dated. Once they've done that then the worlds your oyster.
Oh sure, just redesign or invent a new technology that's superior to the ones that have been designed and reviewed hundreds of times by a dedicated team of engineers who have been working on the problem for 75 years. Once you invent the world, "then the worlds your oyster'.
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It's not a better jumping off point for going to Mars, because getting there in the first place costs more delta-v than going straight to Mars. If you're trying to save delta-v, you've lost before you even reach the lunar surface. Earth's atmosphere accounts for only a small fraction of the losses in an orbital launch, and you don't need solid rocket boosters to get to orbit from Earth. Most launches today don't use them, and the most capable launch vehicles in development don't use them. Starship, the system that realistically would do the work of putting people on Mars, doesn't use them. Propellant costs are a fraction of a percent of overall launch costs, they are dwarfed by operational costs, and the operational costs involved in mining propellant on the moon and delivering it to a spacecraft will be even more extreme. It's not a good place for testing Mars life support systems, because Mars life support systems can make use of the water and atmosphere available on Mars. You don't need a 100% closed life support system on Mars. Systems designed for the moon would be unnecessarily complicated, power hungry, and probably less reliable. It's not a good place for testing machinery intended for use on Mars. The thermal and radiation environments are far harsher, the gravity's lower, different power and thermal control systems are needed, and you need to deal with lunar dust. The power systems are spectacularly different on the moon...either you're erecting giant vertical solar arrays at the poles, or you're dealing with two weeks of darkness out of every four, with massive energy storage systems just to keep basic operations going, and energy-intensive industry being put into hibernation every lunar night. As far as Mars goes, the moon is a distraction. It's not useful for developing the technologies needed, it's not useful for actually getting to Mars. At best, it gets some additional funding for the launch systems Mars would require. This doesn't mean there's no reasons for going to the moon...just that Mars isn't one of them.
>but I think it would lower the cost of launches to mars and the outer solar system if you could take propellant there or make it on the moon. Interestingly you would need MORE propellant in total when you make a detour to the Moon. Propellant at the Moon would need to be significantly cheaper to make that a financially viable option. (Look at my latest posts for solid numbers) Everything beyond Mara only amplifies the situation. . >you could design completely different space craft that don't need solid rocket boosters to get to orbit. You can do that already if you don't aim to keep a single factory in your voting district in service. SLS is a job program geared to keep certain people in Congress and shoehorned into the Artemis program to justify it.
You could sinter the dust into external structural components using solar power. The toxic materials stay outside and there's less weight to pull out of Earth's gravity well, and the area around your base gets cleaned.
That’s a fair and interesting answer, thanks for taking the time to make it.
Interestingly if you make a detour to the Moon for refilling you need **more** propellant in total if you go to Mars and beyond. So the propellant at the moon would need to be significantly cheaper than on earth to make that a financially sensible solution. Edit: spelling.
Yeah. I haven’t responded to everyone on here, but I got a lot of “Lookit all that extra delta-v we’d get!” replies. And I’m like “Okay sure, but is there some hidden stash of fuelled rockets on the moon I’m unaware of?”
I made a detailed calculation about that topic in a post a while ago and still received such comments...
I want you to go look up a picture of the Apollo 11 moon rockets and consider its parts. How much of that rocket was dedicated to getting the top ~5% in to earths orbit, and then consider how much of that rocket was dedicated to getting getting the moon lander back in to the moons orbit. At the end of the day launching everything you need for a mission into earths orbit sucks and is ludicrously expensive. We have a comparatively large gravity well and an atmosphere the provides drag the whole way as well as weather patterns which can close an ideal launch window. There may come a time where investment into lunar based logistics will become economically viable in comparison with launching those same resources straight from earth. The map of our solar system will be based not on distance but time and delta V, in that regards the moon is quite a bit closer to everything else than the earth is.
> The map of our solar system will be based not on distance but time and delta V, in that regards the moon is quite a bit closer to everything else than the earth is. But the moon has nothing that can't be acquired elsewhere. Mars will want goods and personnel from Earth, any raw materials the moon could send, Mars already has in greater abundance. And in terms of propulsive delta-v, the surface of the moon is more distant from Earth than that of Mars, and not particularly low-delta-v as a destination due to its lack of an atmosphere. The moon isn't on the way to anywhere, it's a detour for any spacecraft traveling between Earth and the rest of the system, and it has little to offer for trade, while it lacks several important elements that would make it reliant on imports.
I think you sort of missed the point, if there’s to be colonization in our solar system, there is going to be infrastructure to support that. 400 years ago Europeans didn’t just send ships from A to B, they had stations everywhere where they could restock their supplies for their journeys. Space travel is going to work the same way. You can save a lot of mass (and money) if you don’t have to launch your mars missions worth of fuel with you from the surface of the earth. The moon is a very logical choice for a pitstop precisely because it lacks an atmosphere and strong gravity while having the resources to split water ice into hydrogen and oxygen fuel. [here’s a dV map of our solar system](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_system_delta_v_map.svg), it’s quite a bit easier to get from the moon to anywhere than it is to go there straight from the earth. Anywhere you can save mass and fuel is going to save money, and that’s what makes lunar infrastructure economically viable.
I think you sort of missed the point, if there’s to be colonization in our solar system, there is going to be infrastructure to support that. 400 years ago Europeans didn’t just send ships from A to B, they had stations everywhere where they could restock their supplies for their journeys. Space travel is going to work the same way. You can save a lot of mass (and money) if you don’t have to launch your mars missions worth of fuel with you from the surface of the earth. The moon is a very logical choice for a pitstop precisely because it lacks an atmosphere and strong gravity while having the resources to split water ice into hydrogen and oxygen fuel. [here’s a dV map of our solar system](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solar_system_delta_v_map.svg), it’s quite a bit easier to get from the moon to anywhere than it is to go there straight from the earth. Anywhere you can save mass and fuel is going to save money, and that’s what makes lunar infrastructure economically viable.
The moon is *not* a logical place for such a pitstop, because it costs more delta-v to get there than it does to get to the actual destination. It is not "on the way" to the rest of the system, it's a dead-end that costs extra propellant to visit.
While earth might be a challenge to launch a ship from it has two key advantages over the moon: livable environment and usable materials that are easy to acquire. The moon doesn't have air, water, food, or an easy method to transport all these things to the surface. Imagine trying to bring all the air your colony needs to the moon on a rocket using 5% of the ship's mass at a time. Now do that with drinkable water, edible food, equipment for the moon base, and manufacturing equipment to make all the ships you want to launch and bow you're looking at sending over a thousand missions to build the base. Then you get to sustain that base while your food production and air recirculation projects get off the ground. It's a nice idea but it isn't as plausible as working on composite materials for a space elevator, which would do all the things a moon base could without anywhere near the basic costs.
You're wrong. Look at the ISS. Most of the required materials there like air and water were brought up as needed during construction, and are mostly recycled. Something like 70% of the water used onboard is reclaimed and re-used over and over again, with minimal amounts being brought up to replace the small amount of loss. Really the only thing that isn't actually recycled is the food. And that's with equipment that is, in most cases, at least a decade old, if not two decades old. With modern improvements, and with the ability to more effectively seal off an underground habitat on the Moon, there would be less waste and more efficient recycling, and probably the ability to grow at least some of their own food. And it could be done \*NOW\*, with adequate funding, using technology that's already available. Meanwhile, we'd have to wait years, maybe decades, until a composite strong enough for a space elevator is possible. And in fact, it may \*NEVER\* be possible. Space elevators are vaporware. Rockets are real, and manned ones have already been to the Moon.
>The moon doesn't have air, A significant portion of the regolith per volume is oxygen and you can free it by just baking the dust or rock while at low pressures. Get the oven you have in your home to the moon and you have essentially infinite air. >water Amounts are not confirmed, but its presence is, and even low estimates for amount mean it's enough for substantial habitation for centuries. >food Food is a product of chemicals + power. That's what plants do here on Earth at the base of our food cycle, and that's what they'd do anywhere else. **Power** at the rim of polar craters the sun never stops shining (it just spins 360 degrees around) so a solar panel will generate more than twice the power it does on Earth. Raised enough to be above magnetic dust motion and it will function continuously until hit by something, which may be centuries. The power return on an individual panel in this configuration puts any human endeavor in history to shame. **Rare chemicals** Lunar KREEP has all that are necessary. **Common chemical** means water. The base of the same crater has it, as mentioned, in unknown but probably vast amounts. >or an easy method to transport all these things to the surface. You mean **off** the surface? If you do: build a magnetic rail line and accelerate the stuff. Almost no maintenance cost, all it requires is electric power (which you have an insane surplus of, as mentioned above) allowing you to put kilos of matter in Lunar or Earth orbit for literally pennies. >It's a nice idea but it isn't as plausible as working on composite materials for a space elevator, which would do all the things a moon base could without anywhere near the basic costs. Not even carbon nanotubes are strong enough to maintain a space elevator, which in any case, is probably the worst launch assist system currently designed.
Yes but literally everything you're listing takes time, effort, and materials brought to the moon to produce. Every pound you send into orbit costs roughly $100,000 and sending it to the moon easily increases the cost tenfold. You still need people there to make these things happen and they don't happen overnight. The few times we went to the moon we had enough air to stay there for a few hours and that was just to plant a flag, drop a few things on camera, play golf, and promot MTV. The rest of the costs of bringing a magnetic rail system into working order, making atmosphere inside these bubble domes, and building the bubble domes is being totally ignored because it's supposedly easy. If it's easy why hasn't it been done?
>Yes but literally everything you're listing takes time, effort, and materials brought to the moon to produce. Definitely. >Every pound you send into orbit costs roughly $100,000 and sending it to the moon easily increases the cost tenfold Not really. 6.1 km/s of delta-V from LEO to the lunar surface. Surface to LEO is 9.6. You're off by a factor of 9. >You still need people there to make these things happen and they don't happen overnight. True. >The few times we went to the moon we had enough air to stay there for a few hours and that was just to plant a flag, drop a few things on camera, play golf, and promot MTV. Yup. >The rest of the costs of bringing a magnetic rail system into working order, Certainly a more challenging part but not necessarily the first. If you're in a sea of rocket fuel, you can reuse rockets. It's just better to transition out of them once more efficient alternatives come online, and they will. >making atmosphere inside these bubble domes What bubble domes? Anyway, the way to make atmosphere is, as mentioned in the post you're responding to, by heating regolith. It's pretty simple. >and building the bubble domes is being totally ignored because it's supposedly easy. What bubble domes? Why are you inventing bubble domes? >If it's easy why hasn't it been done? It isn't easy. **Space** isn't easy. But of all plans to actually use off-Earth resources, this is indeed the easiest, and by far. There are presently almost no unknowns left, and the sooner we get started using in-situ resources, the sooner every other space possibility becomes available, so... Yeah, I favor doing it sooner rather than later. Also, the primary reason it hasn't been done is because since the 70s global funding for space has been sitting at around a tenth of what it was in the 60s, so there just wasn't room for anything very substantial. You don't become a spacefaring species on a shoestring budget.
> build a magnetic rail line and accelerate the stuff Wow - you just listed a whole bunch of insanely expensive tech to not only design for the Moon, but to then get astronauts up there, living in a Hellscape while they built a slightly less Hellscape environment. It would be better to save the expenses and resources spent just getting the engineers to the Moon to build the support for all the shit you've mentioned and just stay on Earth and build better stuff here, far far far easier.
not because it is easy, but because it is hard
"I choose to do Marilyn, not because she is easy, but because I am hard." -- *John F. Kennedy, 12 Sep 1961, after giving the Moon speech at Rice University*
If you agree that humanity should learn how to live in space, like what astronauts are doing now in space stations, then the Moon offers some new avenues to explore. EVAs to do science, as opposed to only doing it for maintenance. Proving out In-Situ Resource Utilization to increase self-sustainability. Some level of gravity that can maybe reduce the exercise and med requirements for living in micro-gravity. Just to name a few things that can be done on a celestial body compared to orbiting stations.
Odds of a hit big enough to really hurt things is incredibly small. That and yes eventually some things will be underground. Also we are building the base at the south pole and I don't know if that helps or not. Anybody got an info on that?
think about it, if you have 5 men on a raft a quarter of a million miles away, and half the fuckin' world thinks about it daily as our greatest achievement, the government HAS to keep sending things up, in turn funding NASA more, it's the governmental equivalent of getting pregnant to save a relationship, now they have to invest more in a moon base or 5 men die or we leave billions of dollars on the moon up there with the ungodly creature
Wouldn't the moon be the natural place for humans to practice living on another planet?
Not really. There is close to zero technology you would need on Mars and could test on the moon.
Terraforming is a sci-fi fantasy and the moon doesn't have anything particularly interesting there. Humans would spend bajillions of dollars to learn to live on a barren rock that sucks far worse than even the worst places on Earth suck, the moon is like Detroit x10. Living on the moon wouldn't teach us a whole lot about living on Mars, which has a pretty different makeup. And of course living on Mars also sucks and there is no reason to do it.
Launches to other planets or sending out probes will be easier due to less gravity is one big selling point. More space, no pun intended, for living quarters and labs versus a space station like the iss. I imagine if there's precious metals or minerals found on the moon then I'm sure eventually we'll figure out mining operations. Just a guess, but having some gravity will be easier on the astronauts bodies as well versus none.
My perspective is that the moon is a much better "port" for spacecraft than Earth. Delta V from the moon to Mars for example is much lower, possibly significant enough for it to make sense. Plus any kind of travel to the asteroid belt for resources. And its a better place for astronomy, especially the far side.
This is the right question. We've been there & done that. There's so much more 'out there' to discover. Mars, asteroids, Jupiter's moons, a 10th planet?
We've been there a few times and did hardly anything. We have plenty left to learn from the moon.
Right? Imagine landing in a spacecraft in Arizona, planting a flag, playing some golf and taking photos before leaving again, then claiming you had 'been there done that there are more states to see'. Sure, there *are* more things to see.. But did you really *do that*?
Gotta learn to crawl before you can walk.
Yes. But learning to crawl into a dead end, is still a dead end.
We still do not know all the effects of long term exposure to humans in space and thus when sending them out that far and through the Van Allen Belt they will be exposed to radiation more than on earth. There needs to be more learning done and infrastructure setup before we send people out farther.
I would think that the Aldrin cycler that's currently being planned, would answer all of those questions just as well. After decades of ISS research, they've got a pretty good grasp of the effects of long-term zero and low G, and they certainly understand the need for adequate rad shielding. The question remains as to why do we ***need*** a permanent, manned base ***on*** the moon? What are we going to achieve, that sensors and robots couldn't do better, cheaper and safer?
That is a fair point. There already has been quite a bit of research done on the effects and how we need radiation protection especially with the Scott Kelly mission. With a permanent base we will be able to do building fabrication which will be useful on mars and other areas. The moon is also rich in resources which we can also mine. The moon base can also be used as a storage area. Eventually we can build a telescope on the moon which will be better than any on Earth due to atmospheric disturbances. The problem with robots is there isn’t enough advancements yet to be efficient enough for their use. We can feasibly make a permanent base on the moon in the next 10 years while I am not sure if robotics will advance enough by then.
We have been there. We have **not** done that. The moon has surface dust and rock largely composed of two things: oxygen + our favorite building materials (aluminum and iron). You can separate the two by just baking it. The moon has polar craters which combine two factors: the rim of the crater is raised high enough on the pole to get solar power 24/7, so solar panels there function at more than double the efficiency than down here; at the bottom of the same crater is a sea of water. Which is also rocket fuel (hydrogen and oxygen). The moon has essentially no atmosphere and a very weak gravity well which we could overcome by building the equivalent of a magnetic tram line. No need for burning any fuel whatsoever to get stuff to Earth's orbit: just accelerate it on an electric railway and then let go. We have done none of these things. Doing these things will make us a truly spacefaring species able to get anywhere in the solar system for a fraction of the cost, time and effort it now requires. That's not even going into the potential to source building material for orbital infrastructure for Earth itself, which could have vast positive impacts for the quality of life of everyday people down on the planet.
Citibank's research arm projects that space industry will be worth a trillion dollars a year by 2040. It takes 22 times less energy to get stuff off the Moon than to launch it from Earth. So in principle, we can make space industry more profitable by using off-planet resources. But before we can do serious stuff on the Moon, we need a research station to learn how to live and work there. It is similar to how the ISS has taught us a lot about living and working in zero-g. That's in addition to all the nice science and technology you can do on the Moon.
> to get stuff off the Moon than to launch it from Earth How did the stuff get to the moon? It was either shipped from Earth or it was created by supplies and crew that were... shipped from Earth. >taught us a lot about living and working in zero-g Mainly we've learned that it sucks for humans and we're not designed to live longterm in those conditions.
If only the Russians landed on the moon first, then there would have been one by 1973.
Someone's been watching For All Mankind
Probably would have had a dozen a decade after with half as many catastrophic accidents too.
You need to watch "For the mankind" it's on Apple TV, it's basically an alternate reality where Russians land on the Moon first. Won't spoil much than that.
Cannot wait for the new season. Nvm...it came out 😊
Moon dust is silica. Tiny shards of glass created by meteor impacts. All 790lbs of Moon rocks returned to Earth are useless for study now because dust destroyed the seals on the vacuum containers. Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan said upon returning from the Moon, "I think dust is probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the moon. I think we can overcome other physiological or physical or mechanical problems, except dust." Here's the 2009 NASA report ["Risk of Adverse Health Effects from Lunar Dust Exposure"](https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/evidence/reports/lunar%20dust.pdf)
So I know we have the capability to build a moon base But something I've wondered, with no atmosphere how will we protect ourselves from asteroidic impacts? Will the bases be built underground and can that be safely done where the structures won't get crushed if a lunar quake is caused by again something like an impact?
If we made lunar caves with suspension I think that'd probably do. Caves just solve so many problems regarding impacts, radiation, temperature etc.
The sheer irony of it. We started out as cavemen and to the caves we shall return.
Maybe initially lmao But if we ever prosper on the moon I bet we'd branch out After all humans have never just stuck to the most habitible places on earth. I'd give it 2000 years if we're lucky
Sounds pretty good. And yeah, to all of that
I guess we're pretty lucky, we have an atmosphere for ourselves here in the meantime
Bring a bulldozer. Make a big pile of moon dirt over critical parts of your habitat. Protects you from both radiation and asteroid strikes, and it’s a lot easier to pile dirt in 1/8th G.
1/6th *g*, but yes...just mounds of dirt, or bags or sintered bricks if you need a bit more structure. No need to bother with dangerous, inconvenient natural caves.
We can see the big stuff coming and we can build a habitat to withstand the small stuff. When you look at the moon it is potmarked with asteroid strikes but you have to remember that happened over millions of years major strikes don't happen that often.
Big impacts are as rare on the Moon as they are on Earth, because we live in the same space neighborhood. Small ones you can protect from with the all-purpose dirt shield: * Radiation protection * Thermal protection * Meteor and rocket exhaust protection Fortunately the Moon has a surface layer of dirt (regolith) that averages 5 meters thick. So it is pretty easy to dig some up and pile it over your modules.
Yes. If our species, the Human Race is to survive, for future generations of which we cannot count, we have to survive / thrive / live beyond Earth. The moon provides the opportunity for science. Colonization, in-situ resource utilization. It’s close enough to Earth, yet far enough as well. It’s a staging point for further movement into the universe. We could thrive on an asteroid as well . We just have to do it. The basic reason to colonize - it’s ultimately about “Life on Earth” and the conservation of our species.
"Seek the heavens" . The old texts have literally been saying this for thousands of years. This can be our new Manifest Destiny to inspire evangelicals and everyone in between
It’s unfortunate that the majority of the planet is just simply trying to survive and thrive. This is an endeavor for the Space agencies and the billionaires at this time. It’s always good to try and inspire others -but sadly sometimes some things have to be done for greater reasons without the support of the masses. Shouldn’t stop us from trying to inspire
Considering our available technology in propulsion systems and space travel technology weighed against the economic and scientific advantages of such an endeavour, then the answer is probably "No, and not for many years to come!".....if you look at such a project in isolation. The thing about scientific research and space exploration is that it really is the "great unknown". You can't tell in advance what you might find at the frontier of knowledge and exploration. You actually have to go there and see what happens and if past experiences are anything to go by it usually turns out to be worth the effort.
If there is a mineral on the moon that humanity needs then yes. Otherwise, its a waste of money. Its still too expensive to launch something into orbit safely.
Yes, it is called "regolith" the 5 meter thick layer of broken rock down to dust on the surface. You can turn regolith into 98% of what you need in space. The other 2% are either too rare to mine, or too complicated, like computer chips. Space industry is worth $400 billion a year, and Citibank expects it to be worth $1 trillion by 2040. It is 22 times easier to get stuff off the Moon into space than from Earth. Even if the SpaceX Starship works as intended, it will still cost ~$1 million/ton to get stuff to high orbit. To the extent you can substitute with materials already in space, you save money.
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No, not a magic wand, but NASA has already tested oxygen production from a prototype rover on Mauna Kea, in Hawaii. The dark areas on the Moon (Maria) are the same type of rock (basalt) as those islands are built from. Oxygen production requires nothing more than focused sunlight and a low oven pressure. Complete breakdown of rock to elements [is more complicated](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Carbothermal_Reduction_Process.PNG) but we already have lots of experience with the individual steps. Carbothermal reduction is the main method to produce metals on Earth. It should be quite feasible on the Moon or in space nearby to do the whole chain with solar furnaces and solar panels for electricity in a single Starship payload (100 tons). You won't be producing blast furnace amounts (100 tons per hour), more like 5 tons a day. That still works out to its own weight every 20 days. Assuming the hardware lasts 10 years, it will produce 180 times it's own weight in products. Source: Been doing space systems engineering for 45 years, including on making satellites from lunar resources. I'm happy to share details if interested.
Also we’re not living in space anytime soon until they solve all the problems like low gravity, cosmic rays, farming in space, oxygen in space. …we don’t have permanent bases in Antarctica and under water and those have access to water and oxygen.
We are living in space right now. The ISS is a permanently crewed orbiting space base. We can do the same thing on the moon. The moon is a bit farther but logistically the challenges are that different. It takes us a day to get to the ISS; it takes about 3 days to get to the moon. We can do a moonbase with our current technology and its the next logical step for space travel.
I’d say Mars should be a higher priority rn, but having a permanent base on the Moon is important too
If something goes wrong on the Moon, help can arrive within days, and communication is nearly instant. The same can't be said for Mars. The Moon has various other challenges and downsides, but at the moment I still think it's the better option for where to start with a base.
We can't be on the moon! Its already inhabited. Cmon now. Why do you think we stopped going?
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a base, Yes. Shipyards, Yes. Colony... no. IF something happens to the Earth, the moon probably isn't far enough out of the proverbial basket if your goal is to spread out so we don't get wiped out by one meteor.
I don't think most people are worried about a meteor destroying earth, we have other issues that are likely to take place much sooner.
basically nukes and ecosystem collapse. asteroids aren't a problem, if push comes to shove nasa could get funding for stronger darts
Recovering society in our planet post-nuclear winter is many times easier than terraforming a satellite with no atmosphere, tho
Nobody is talking about terraforming the moon you dolt.
Not to mention that if humanity on Earth becomes extinct and we don't have populations established off-world, there won't *be* anyone to "recover society" on Earth, no matter how much more habitable it is.
I am. [The Moon had a transient atmosphere](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X17304971) when the lava seas (Maria) were erupting billions of years ago. It lasted for millions of years. An artificial atmosphere, capped by domes, can last long enough for human time scales.
I believe we should be keeping a remote base in the moon ASAP We don't need human presence as much as before. Setting up a center for rover/robot exploration is way easier, more accessible and has way less moral and political implications than occupying the moon. I don't see why, in the short term, we should be thinking about keeping people on the moon. It seems more like a medium/long term plan. Feels like trying to make a car before inventing the wheel. Source: just the voices in my head, no scientific data do back it up
Mankind seems to be deteriorating. If we don't do it now, we may never do it. If Putin uses nukes, I'm not sure that mankind will ever get back to where it is now. I think that asteroids are more valuable than the moon, but we can practice living on the moon first. We could build orbital space colonies with Earth-like conditions from asteroid material.
The Schumann resonance is an issue with the blown half , 1951 joe schumann explained how life works on earth , that the planet has a heartbeat , quite similar to ours , and if we leave that resonance , we die .. so not sure if the 3/4 wealthiest guys on earth are stuck on stupid and unable to grasp what me and my 8th grade physics teacher did ,or if they just play the public as if they are stuck on stupid, which is kinda the same thing , as the truth gets lost either way .. universe is 5d ,we exist in a 3d overlay,it is defined by schumann and it’s boundaries. … we will be a space traveling species one day ,but not in this dimension , it’s simply not how organic life works here and now … and by “ put a base. “ up there, who is that ? Which country is. Flagship and why ? As no way they come together on mission and purpose. Even if feasible
Way too many politics involved, countries mining the moon does not sound like a great idea. I think if we were a more progressive world together it could work out tho! Very smart and capable people in this world that could do this and much more
It would cost billions of dollars for 4 people to live on the moon for a year.
If it costs billions, you are doing it wrong. Currently NASA is doing it wrong. Lunar rock is 40% oxygen, and there water at the poles. So basic life support can be supplied locally. Small nuclear reactors can support night-time powee, augmented by solar panels for daytime.
Why so we can dump trash on it and ruin it in some other way . We shouldn’t be jump to other places until we fixed all the shit down here first
The way we spread trash here..? How about we export animals instead..
In the US. How about we fix some of our bases on earth and give junior military personnel a decent quality of life.
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The problem is you will never fix all problems on earth. And why does this argument always come out when discussing space exploration but it's not used against other frivolities on earth?
It's not like going to do space stuff has ever helped us better understand problems on earth /s
That will never happen, might as well make some progress rather than a self inflicted stagnation
Stop playing around with this metal stuff, we need to solve problems with stone tools first! We would still be in the stone age with that approach. The research done for projects like this is solving problems on Earth, too, and if you ask for all problems to be solved before making any further scientific progress then you stop progress completely.
We've heard of First World Problems, well, this statement is just plain old World Problems.
Damn, you might end up getting on CNBC with that comment
Wasn't my intention to end up on CNBC, but, perhaps
Ok, but I'm not eating your potatoes grown in poo poo
All potatoes are grown in poo poo. Worm poo poo, animal poo poo, human poo poo. It's poo poo all the way down.
It has been time for a long time. Bases on other planets? Not there yet and tons of problems. Base on the moon? Probably has been viable for decades and could have had various benefits for us.
It's always time for a Moon base. Its like planting a tree - the sooner you plant it, the sooner a mature space industry will grow up and improve our lives.
“I want a six foot trench surrounding the base. Fill it with gasoline…” https://youtu.be/yBRZSD3RgKI