Mining On The Moon

The Night Watchman writes "This article on Yahoo News outlines the latest plans in the works for a handful of private companies to begin lunar mining missions within the next 10 years."

Comments

Customs

[Banjonardo]

Hopefully they won't have to go through customs.

This is patently absurd.

[Exmet Paff Daxx]

I think we all know the real problem with this idea of "moon mining": flooding the market with cheap, mechanically produced gemstones, allowing multinationals to reap an absurd profit by selling short. As many of you know, the "moon" is a myth.

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

Is it really time to do this?

[MathJMendl]

I think we should finish screwing up our own planet first before we go on and screw up others. Slow and steady does the job.

Re:they shouldn't be able to do this

[Jerf]

What exactly are they "destroying"? Rocks? A dust layer? Undistinguished landscapes?

There's no life on the moon. None. Not even algae to get upset about dying. The only thing that even remotely affects life is the appearance of the moon, specifically the aldebo, and mining is unlikely to change THAT for a long time.

The universe routinely "destroys" entire galaxies for no (known) good reason. Who cares if we pull some stuff out of the moon?

*snort* "destroy the moon" ... jeez... come on! Engage that brain!

Easy way to get at the gold.

[J.C.B.]

Just throw a few nukes at it. It would destabilize it's orbit, and much of it would fall to the ground.

Sure people would die, but gold would be raining down from the sky!

This is totally unfair...

[Nathdot]

Sure maybe the mining companies have a lot of money, but consider this for a moment:

Just how are ordinary decent tree-hugging nature-loving separitist activists like myself expected to get up to the moon to protest?

And speaking of unfair, what is there to chain ourselves to up there?

And, also, how are we going to play Woodie Guthrie and smoke Mother Nature's loving green herb without atmosphere.

TOTALLY UNFAIR!

Reminds me of a song!

[Hercynium]

If you believe
They put a mine on the moon
[mine on the moon]
</MUSIC>

Not half as useless as Holmium!

[i1984]

I had to do an oral report on holmium in high school. There were something like a dozen references to holmium in my town's university library, and half of them were in Russian. Half the rest simply noted that holmium was named for Stockholm. The remaining three merely commented that holmium is an element (with various element properties) and that it is utterly devoid of practical benefit to human kind.

My report was supposed to be seven minutes long...

If there's holmium on the moon, we should devote our vast technological resources to conquering the ocean's inky mysterious depths!

Yeah...so I'm bitter, Ok?

Re:we never landed on the moon (offtopic)

[sam@caveman.org]

take the number of Americans who live in trailer parks with a cross-section of those who think that Vince McMahon is god.

isn't that a bit like saying, take the number of Americans who live in Chicago with a cross-section of those who live in Illinois?

-sam