Slashdot Mirror
Speculations on a Moon Colony
Buggernut writes "As reported by the BBC, humans could be living on the Moon within 20 years, according to a leading lunar scientist."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Fourty years ago, when the Americans were graring up for their first moon missions, the 'pundits' made exactly the same predictions.
Today it's the Chinese, but it all seems very similar.
Sure we've got better technology now, but will that really make the difference? Lunar colonisation will only happen when there's political will to see it happen, and frankly, I can't see the conditions being right for that for some time.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
according to a leading lunar scientist
That was supposed to be "loony" scientist.
Best Windows Freeware
Why couldn't we have had humans living on the moon 20 years ago? Is there a technological reason? Afterall we could keep humans alive on the moon for a matter of days, all we'd have to do is launch frequent resupply missions and they'd be just dandy up there. Not really much different from the space station, except you get the added bonus of SOME gravity so maybe your bones won't complete decalicfy while you're up there. But there really are not pending technological obsticals to a moon base.
Now, weather a moon base is practical, usefull, or economically feasable is a whole another ball of wax, and the answers are probably all "no". What the hell are you going to do up there? I would like to have a ham radio linear transponder up there, but other than that what is the moon really good for? It can't be a RELIABLE communications satellite because it's only in the sky half the time and is very far away with a very high latency. It's got some rocks and minerals but nothing that would be worth flying back down to earth. Scientific research I suppose, but what could you do on the moon that you can't do on the space station for a lot less money, due to it being so much closer? Yea yea, a jumping off point for a Mars mission. See above, what is really the point to going to Mars? We still don't have the propulsion technology to make frequent Mars trips a practical reality.
One thing that could be a lucritive source of income for a moon base would be moon tourism. Perhaps the science could use it to fund itself, a la the russions and the space station.
IMO, before we even think about a moon base, we need to think long and hard about what the fuck we're going to do with it. Send more probes, shit send a thousand probes. Don't send big dumb expensive probes, send little cheap insectiod probes. Do the same to Mars. If there's something interesting there, we'll find it that way.
I know I know, if people said what I've said about the new world the US wouldn't be here. But the analagy with space is a little different. The "new world" was just another continent on earth. It had air, water, arible land, native people for which to enslave and abuse. Mars is a giant inhospitible desert with some frozen CO2 at the poles. Its possible we've overlooked something, but again it's a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to send probes.
If someone wants to squander their personal fortune on manned missions to Mars/Moon, go for it, but I'd rather my tax dollars be spent more efficiently.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
The article just says it's technologically feasible. How boring.
In the movie The Right Stuff, and, IIRC in the book,a congressman says to an astronaut "What makes your rockets go up?" The astronaut starts to saying something about reaction masses and exhaust velocity, and the comgressman cuts him short and says, "No. What makes your rockets go up is funding."
Of course a Moon base is technologically feasible. Goodness, if we're just talking technological feasibility we should be able to be a lot more imaginative than that. (Project Orion, anyone?).
But unless someone "salts" the Moon with gold nuggets (I believe it's in Carl Sandburg's The People, Yes in which someone starts a rumor that there's gold on the Moon, and so many people start heading for the Moon that the person who started the rumor figures there must be something in it after all and joins them) I don't see how it's going to happen.
(Another nugget from The People, Yes "Another baby in Cuyahuga County, Ohio--why did she ask: 'Papa, what is the moon supposed to advertise?'" I'd give a nickel to know whether Heinlein read that before writing "The Man who Sold the Moon.")
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Think about it. You correctly identified rays as going THROUGH the subject, to a hypothetic receptor on the other side. Obviously, for an image to manifest, the amount of energy that moves through the subject has to vary, otherwise the image would be all-white (or all-gray). Hence, we have some of the rays moving straight through, and the rest of the rays being scattered away. Some of those will be going straight back to where they originated from. Hence, you get just the same image (well, inversed) if you place the receptor right at the source.
Free as in mason.
Permanent human colonies on the moon? We like to think of it as our moon, but the Zhti Ti Kofft already have a base there. We are not powerful enough to force them off, and probably won't be in 20 years either. There is just no way they want to peacefully co-exist with us. After all they invaded during the balckout.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
On Earth 1 or 2 people die and we start inventing things to keep more from dying.
The Sol system is a little less friendly. A comet or other planet wide disaster is more likely to kill a very large portion of the planet, and totally destroy it's manufacturing infrastructure.
It would be far better to have a self sustaining economy away from Earth, one that could help rebuild our planet if BAD THINGS were to happen to it.
Before we can have a s.s. economy in space, we need to take first steps. We need to put people up there and find out what they need based on the circumstances, then we invent it and move on to the next thing.
The moon hopefully will provide enough resources for those living there to create what they feel they need.
As to your tax dollars, c'mon man, wouldn't you say your grand children being able to take a shuttle trip or elevator ride to the moon would be a good thing?
There are several reasons why someone might want to set up a base on the moon.
Because the moon has lower gravity, it would make an ideal space station.
The moon has a higher content of metals than the earth's crust. Plus, you can dig up entire craters and no one will notice. You can set up low-G manufacturing processes, dump all the waste chemicals into the moon, and no one will care.
Because the moon is on top of the earth, it is really easy to launch attacks on the earth from the moon with missiles or bombs. Whoever can get the hardware on the moon first will dominate the entire earth.
The problems outweight the costs. There's the whole problem of radiation. Solar flares release enough dangerous radiation that it would kill anyone who stayed on the moon's surface for an extended period of time. We would need a lot of shielding to protect us from it, more than is reasonable to manufacture at this time.
Also, launching stuff into space is one thing, but it is more expensive to get it to the moon and back.
When these two problems are solved, then you may see people beging to establish bases on the moon.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
It seems odd that we can spend 400 billion dollars on defense in a year, but not have NASA be doing 10x the work they do now....
Why can't we spend 20 billion less (what is that, a couple stealth bombers?) and get:
*NASA sending a probe a month to mars, or the OTHER 7 PLANETS
*build a better ISS.
*colonize the moon
*colonize mars
*put a big honkin telescope(or an array of them!) on the moon/mars.
*mine moon/mars for resources(water, building materials?, ore???)
*have a launchpad on the moon, since it would be less fuel intensive to launch from there
*build a space shuttle that kicks ass. that can easily takeoff/land/look cool without needs major repairs after every mission.
*or...
those might not seem practical, but why not? the advancement of science shouldn't be determined by profitability of a given project.