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."

Comments

"What makes your rockets go up?"

[dpbsmith]

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.")