Site for Moon Base Determined

Deinhard writes "Going hand-in-hand with the recent discussion on Moon Bases, Space.com is reporting that the perfect spot for a moon base has been found. According to the article, 'the best spot to settle on the Moon may be on the northern rim of Peary crater, close to the north pole.' What makes the location so important is that it is permanently lit, with a balmy -58 Fahrenheit (-50 C)."

Comments

Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[Ars-Fartsica]

Record debt and deficits, and the Senate is right now discussing removing the Estate Tax. There is no money for this in your lifetime, it is scifi.

Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[bobbis.u]

There are other countries in space besides the USA.

Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[JasonMaggini]

Who says it's the government that has to build it?

Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[stinkyfingers]

And why would that stop the US Government? It didn't stop it from going to war, or continuing it, or providing an extension in welfare programs (drug benefit).

Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[JasonMaggini]

Ah, to be that naive again....

Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[Catbeller]

Five years ago, we had plenty of money, and we were paying down the national debt, to the consternation of the debt holders.

Now we are pumping almost a quarter of our national tax revenues into paying the interest on the exploding debt. The average schmo got $300, the wealthy got hundreds of billions in tax cuts, and we are BROKE. Not an accident; now come the cuts in every guvmint expenditure hated by the right, along with huge increases in defense and surveillance spending.

We aren't going to buy any moon bases :(

We are buying a war machine, an occupation authority with 14 permanent military bases in Iraq, an upcoming invasion and occupation of Iran, economic collapse, and a permanent diversion of 25+ percent and rising of our national tax revenues into the hands of the people lending us the money to go broke.

No moon bases, not ever. A debt society trying to dig out from under the wreckage of the next ten years, for most of this century.

Re:Finance: Money for Moon Base Unknown

[sp0rk173]

Well, it's not that naive, but it is naive. IF a corporation builds it, it DOES, without argument, belong to the corporation (unless they donate it). If built by government, it is at least in theory the property of the people. Modern practice has shown this to not always be true, but it's an arguable point. I know the park down the street, national forests, army bases, police stations, etc are ideally there for my good. They were built with the idea that I, as a tax paying citizen of a "democratic" state-based society, will benefit from their existance. Now a days they tend to exist for the extention and proliferation of the system, but it's hard to stop that. I agree that his comment about the base existing for humanity is very naive. If the US government built it - or any government for that matter - it would only exist for strategic allies or neutral nations that we feel cooperation with will benefit us. Just wanted to point out, though, that if a corporation built it, it would exist for one thing: economic profit for the corporation heads.

ice station zebra

[MrLint]

Up at camp in the mountains in Feb. couple of years ago it was -40 in the daytime. Which is almost bearable if the wind isnt blowing... so as long as the wind isnt blowing on the moon... hmmmm well then there ya go:) no wind blowing on the moon

Re:Why bother?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Build it in parts here, assemble on the moon. Easier to launch a bigger ship from there.

Re:Dammit, skip the moon, go to Mars...

[TripMaster Monkey]

The moon is just a big rock

Yes, just a big rock, chock full of raw materials we need for your trip to Mars, and with only 1/6 the gravity and no atmosphere, it's easy to get those materials into orbit.

"Skipping" the moon is sheer lunacy (pardon the pun). Once established, the Moon Base will py for itself countless times over.

No problem

[El]

Growing up in Alaska, I've been outside in -60F weather, and it's not so bad (you can always put on more insulation). You just have to keep every part of your body covered, including wearing a face mask. Once you solved the problem of a total lack of oxygen, solving the problem of keeping warm should be trivial.

Re:No problem

[Skyshadow]

Once you solved the problem of a total lack of oxygen, solving the problem of keeping warm should be trivial.

There is no problem with a lack of oxygen. The vacuum would kill you way before you had a chance to suffocate.

Whatever happened to Malapert Mountain?

[RevRigel]

TFA claims there are no constantly sunlit spots near the south pole, but remembering an article I saw a few years ago, I looked up Malapert Mountain, also in a space.com article. Same story..constantly lit, on a crater rim, and the inside of the crater is constantly dark, so it would be perfect for an optical telescope with a short cable run to the moon base at the crater rim. They even suspect strongly that there's water ice in the crater there. So, what gives? Is the previous article wrong or are the people in the current article suffering from amnesia/not-discovered-here? They seem to both be using data from Clementine. Here's another, more informative site on Malapert with lots of pretty pictures.

Re:Dammit, skip the moon, go to Mars...

[lgw]

I'm not te AC, but: Mars (presumably) has a reasonable amount of water , and the dust has faced at least some erosion, so it won't eat through space suit seals and kill you if it gets in your lungs (moon dust is sharp).

I'm not sure that a Mars colony could become self-sustaining, but it could get a *lot* closer to that than the moon. Either the moon or Mars would be a far better place to launch rockets from than Earth, as you have less gravity to fight, but still enough to avoid the hassles of 0G construction.

Plus, smash enough comets into Mars and it would retain an atmousphere for quite some time. The moon is a lost cause for terraforming.