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http://www.moonsociety.org/whitepapers/moonreturn_positionpaper.html

A far better link is this one: http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/ISRO_Lavatube_Discovery.html

You can't tell the length of a chamber from a photograph of the surface. Its not at all clear that there is any enclosed space in this tube. It could have been that the un-collapsed section is in fact filled full of derbies. Until we can hit them with ground penetrating radar its probably guesswork.

• The Artemis Project - The project is a private venture to establish a permanent, self-supporting community on the Moon. Brief overview of the Artemis project.
• The Mars Society - To further the goal of the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
• The Moon Society - An international nonprofit educational and scientific foundation formed to further the creation of communities on the Moon involving large-scale industrialization and private enterprise.
• National Space Society - grassroots organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. Magazine.
• Stanford on the Moon (by 2015?) And yes, Stanford as in the university.
• Space Frontier Foundation - seems to have projects for space colonization, missions to the Earth's moon, and so on. Looks like a large scale organization.
• The Space Settlement Initiative
• Space Access Society - activism for getting out of the NASA-only paradigm/reality.
• Students for the Exploration and Development of Space - `... is dedicated to expanding the role of human exploration and development of space. We also seek to educate the public in such a way as to attain this goal. `
• Space Studies Institute - `SSI's stated mission is: Opening the energy and material resources of space for human benefit by completing the missing technological links to make possible the productive use of the abundant resources in space.`
• International Space University - `The International Space University provides graduate-level training to the future leaders of the emerging global space community at its Central Campus in Strasbourg, France, and at locations around the world. ` (mentions 'systems engineering' on the About page)
• Space Settlement Institute - `The Space Settlement Institute is a non-profit association founded to help promote the human colonization and settlement of outer space. `
• Cygo's Space Initiative - plan and conduct exploration missions to minor planets, build and mass produce (while in space) a multi-purpose interconnectable module, and to offer products and services using space and the materials therefrom.
• Freeluna - `Freeluna.com is dedicated to the proposition that the colonization of outer space is critical for the long term survival of the human species, and that colonization of the moon and the exploitation of the moon's natural resources is one of the very best first steps in that incredible journey off planet.` ... and when I first visited this page, I was visitor #3371. Yikes. Contact: Bill Clawson, wclawson@freeluna.com
• Island One Society - associated with the Artemis society, seems to be mostly a resource-help site.
• The Living Universe Foundation - `The Living Universe Foundation seeks to bring the galaxy alive with life from Earth, while healing the damage that humanity has already inflicted upon the Earth. We believe that expansion into space in the immediate future is a step towards accomplishing this aim.` turmith@yahoo.com --- This organization was inspired by the publication of a certain book. This is heavily related to Project Atlantis or Oceania (artifical floatin

Artemis Project - been around since 1994. By far the most comprehensive plan I've seen.

Moon Society - been around since 2000. They've already tested one habitat.

LiTeRaTi - been around since 1996. Private company in Sweden.

If you really want to go back to the moon consider joining the Moon Society

It should be noted that the world has sent only a tiny set of probes to the Moon in the last 30 years - and only one of them (Lunar Prospector) was a NASA mission. The other US mission (Clementine) was also a very small and inexpensive mission, so basically since Apollo ended our spending on actual lunar missions has been maybe 2% what we've spent on Mars. Does that make sense to anybody here?

NASA still seems very reluctant to send anything, but they are being forced to by a recent review of solar system priorities - also several private firms and a bunch of other countries seem to be getting in on the Moon mission act - see the mission list from the Moon Society.

(Sigh, another interesting story I miss until it's been overwhelmed with dumb comments - not to disparage yours here, it's a good question...)

The detection of water on the Moon so far has been pretty indirect - various kinds of radar and neutron or other remote analysis from orbit, plus some plausibility arguments based on the Moon's orientation and orbit. We are pretty confident about it, but on the other hand, direct beats indirect any day, which is the reason for this and a variety of other missions being planned.

More info on other missions (I just added this one to the list!) available from the Moon Society.

Well, as others have already responded, your Earth-based perspective really doesn't apply to extraterrestrial resource extraction; yes, the primary purpose of mining the Moon would be for space-based uses, although ultimately, until we have a vital solar system economy outside this planet, funding will have to come from sales to Earth (tourism, retirement, science, energy (solar, He3), military benefits, etc.)

A lot of this has been analyzed in an interesting little publication known as the "Moon Miners' Manifesto", which has been publishing on these issues since 1986. Some older articles are available from the Artemis Databook - newer items require a subscription or membership in a partner organization such as the Moon Society.

The big problem is startup money - at least a few billion dollars just to get a base up and operating, with an additional $2 billion or so for each human visit. Estimates to get the lunar solar power system running to something like break-even start at about $150 billion... It's not going to be cheap, and government sponsorship of at least some of the process seems inevitable. It looks like China, at least, "gets it"...

so there's no materials there to build things out of (like radiation shielding, for which the more mass, the better, basically...)

The reason for dropping in on the Moon is because the Moon has an enormous mass of material that is in a much shallower gravity well than Earth's (and twice as shallow as Mars' as well). The only reason for using lunar resources is to provide the materials needed for long-term habitation of deep space. That means mining, and industrial activity, on the Moon. It'll happen, count on it!

And join the Moon Society if you want to be a part of it :-)

Surprisingly, since Apollo 17 left 30 years ago there were not only no further manned missions, but also almost no further robotic missions. The Moon became a "been there done that" world, when in fact there are still a huge number of mysteries about it.

Apollo could only scratch the surface: they had to be very careful about safe landing spots which favored the relatively rare Mare regions, they couldn't dig more than a couple of meters into the surface, they didn't go anywhere near the poles or the far side, which have quite different terrain and likely mineral deposits, etc. Despite some evidence of volcanic activity only Apollo 14 landed in one of the regions of volcanic interest, and the crew there were the least geologically educated of the lot so the samples taken were not terribly useful. etc. etc.

We have more high-resolution pictures of Mars than we do of the Moon - the only really high-res shots (1 meter or better) were from the Apollo command modules as they circled, and those cover just narrow strips of the Moon's surface.

Missions since Apollo amounted to a handful of Russian Luna missions through 1974, then a long gap, a Japanese experimental flight (HITEN) in the 1980's, and Clementine and Lunar Prospector in the 1990's. Clementine was run by the Dept. of Defense, not NASA, and Lunar Prospector was Alan Binder's baby at Lockheed Martin, done on the cheap for $60 million. That's basically the total NASA spending on the Moon since Apollo - less than 2% of the cost of the Mars missions that have failed!

NASA's negelect of the Moon seems to be continuing, but scheduled for next year we have at least 1 government (ESA's SMART-1) and 1 private (TransOrbital's TrailBlazer
) mission on track. The Japanese space agency also plans a Lunar-A mission that may launch next year. So things are starting to look up!

And for those interested in a exploration and development of the Moon, why not join the Moon Society!

First of all, just having any quantity of mass outside of Earth's gravity well is a huge plus - mass is absolutely essential for radiation shielding for one, and as reaction mass for rocketry (there are several relatively high-ISP rocket fuels that could be made out of lunar materials, and almost anything would work for nuclear or ion/plasma drives). The biggest component of the lunar surface is oxygen, which has a number of uses... second is silicon. And of course for any sort of significant construction effort you need structural materials in bulk.

At first a lot of things will have to be brought up from earth, and there will certainly be human or robotic (tele-operated?) work to actually make the habitats/instruments/spacecraft needed. In the long run what the moon is low on (as far as Apollo measurements could tell) are the volatile elements: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, sodium, etc. These may possibly be available in sufficient quantities elsewhere - measurements by Clementine and Lunar Prospector in the last 10 years gave pretty strong evidence for hydrogen (presumably in water ice) at the poles. If not the poles, needs for hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen may have to be met from near-earth comets or asteroids in the long run; in the short run from earth - at least these elements tend to be light!

The space between Earth and Moon has, of course, essentially none of those physical elements, which is why the article (rather overdone) made the analog of space a "desert". It really does make sense to try to get to the other side of Earth's gravity well and get something moving over there.

TransOrbital, which has appeared on /. a few times, is part of a private effort to make the commercial potential of the Moon a reality - they have a test launch coming up December 20th. The Moon Society, where I am currently on the board of directors, is devoted to research and development of the Moon, and recently endorsed the Space Settlement Initiative, one possible way to make all this really happen, and soon.

There's plenty of ways for any of you to get involved - all of these efforts and the cheap launch side of things can all use as much support as possible...

• SMART-1 from ESA (the only one this BBC article mentions)
• LUNAR-A from ISAS/NASDA (Japan).
• SELENE also from ISAS.
• TrailBlazer and Electra from TransOrbital Inc.
• Lunar Retriever from AppliedSpace Resources
• IceBreaker from Lunacorp
• Lunar Service from Celestis (you have to be dead...)
• Lunar Architecture is a subject of study for HJ Rombaut, including a recent Lunar Base design workshop
• Bill Mook's lunar tours
• The Artemis Project

If you're really interested...

The Lunar Embassy is the place you're looking for. If you want to actually be involved in getting there, you might consider joining the Moon Society

Only some of the site is members-only. Much of it is still free to all, as is the main Artemis discussion list, the Moon Society site and the space news pages thereon.

If you've got a better idea on how to entice people into paying membership fees, maybe you could suggest it to them :)

Vik :v)

As Kennedy said in his original speech, the Moon is the key to our further development of space. Whether we're going to Mars, to orbital habitats in L5, to the asteroids, or just trying to manufacture and service satellites, solar power stations, or space stations in Low or Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit, lunar resources can bring costs down immensely. And as others here have mentioned, there's amazing science to be done from the lunar farside. And the view of Earth is pretty amazing too...

Convinced we have to do it? Wondering why NASA has been ignoring the Moon most of the last 30 years? The Moon Society at http://www.moonsociety.org/ was started this past year to provide a central grass-roots organization to advocate for lunar science and development, public or private. There's still a great need there for volunteer help - come join us and help make this happen, before another decade is out!

Many people have heard of the Mars Society and know of their efforts to create human habitats on Mars. What you may not know is that a significant group of people are also working on getting back to the moon - this time to stay! Relevant URLs: The Moon Society and The Artemis Project