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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)."
We are Mooninites from the inner core of the Moon. Our race is hundreds of years behind yours. Some would say that the Earth is our moon, but that would belittle the name of our moon, which is The Moon.
For one thing, the Moon has one third less gravity than your Earth. I don't know if you can understand that, but our vertical leap is beyond all measurement.
On the Moon, nerds get their pants pulled down and they are spanked with Moonrocks.
Fine, I'll build my own moon base! With blackjack...and hookers...in fact, forget the base!
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
They can build the Alan Parsons Project.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
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.
So I suppose you'd be a good person to ask who wrote "The Moon Rulez" on my car with a key.
I own that bit of the moon, i have a certificate to prove it.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
"But Keptin, this is the Garden spot of Ceti Alpha 6"
"What makes the location so important is that it is permanently lit"
;)
Even during a lunar eclipse?
Martin Piper
Owner - ReplicaNet and RNLobby
...we've had the technology for years as Robert Zubrin points out in his book. The moon is just a big rock, and we've been there before.
;) )
(Seriously, read the book, and if you're not convinced, well, you should be.
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
I bet it was all triggerd by our poll
Wouldn't solar radiation be a hazard from the constant light?
This is going to be interesting to see how the man that "laid claim" to the moon is going to handle people that he's sold property to. I wonder how he will respond to the government building a base on "his" territory.. Hmmm wonder if this will turn into a court battle?
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
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
-50 isn't so bad. Almost tolerable. To penguins or something. Maybe we could make a penguin farm on the moon.
One proposal for a moon base I found interesting was using lava
tubes as pre-built bases. It provided radiation as well as
meteorite protection. They actually did a bunch of research in
lave caves in Oregon some time ago.
http://www.oregonl5.org/lbrt/l5ombrr1.html
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
Wouldn't putting a moonbase so close to the Moon's limb will cause line of sight communication problems during parts of the month due to lunar libration?
Possible solutions:
1) very tall antenna
2) relay satellite
Wow, I didn't realize that the moon was going to be so dangerous, what with water ice lurking in the inky blackness and all.
Kinda reminds me of playing Xcom2: Terror from the Deep...
Build it in parts here, assemble on the moon. Easier to launch a bigger ship from there.
Current space ships use up most of their fuel leaving Earth's atmosphere. If a manned trip to Mars was to happen, they would have to refuel unless they wanted to take 3 or 4 years to get there (and the water/food needed for that trip would make a launch straight from Earth basically impossible).
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Now that we have 'official' private space launches, I implore all those zillonaires-with-more-money-than -they-know-what-to-do-with, to come up and sponsor a x-prize like prize for the first moonbase!
It's important to me that my moon base have all 4 seasons.
Will I get that there?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
The lack of atmosphere really changes the way heat flows. Our intuition about hot and cold is shaped by convection, where heat is transfered to gas molecules that bump against us and are then swept away. With no atmosphere, heat transfer slows down. The only heat loss on the moon would occur by conduction into the surface of the moon.
How "cold" is the moon in human terms? I don't have any idea. I'd imagine sunlight would be more important for constant solar power (well, barring eclipses).
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Is there some sort of fat virgin shortage on the moon?
You've got it backwards. Take a look at the numbers. The maximum possible number of lunar eclipses per year is three.
What you're thinking is that when there is an eclipse, it's visible everywhere on earth, I think. Solar eclipses are only visible in certain places.
The alternative is that you're thinking of solar eclipses, and just completely wrong. The maximum possible number of solar eclipses visible from ANYWHERE on earth in the same year is five (also worth noting that if there are five solar eclipses, there can only be two lunar eclipses).
Furthurmore, of those maximum of three eclipses per year, not all of them are total. The north or south pole sometimes escapes them. If the north rim of the moon is visible, then the north pole station will remain lit.
Now, when there is a lunar eclipse, the maximum length is two hours for a partial eclipse, and 1 hour 42 minutes for a total eclipse.
In the worst possible case scenario, a north polar base on the moon will have to run without solar power for a total of six hours a year, broken into three two-hour blocks.
*BZZT!* Wrong! Thanks for playing!
A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is in the umbra or penumbra ("shadow" for you laypeople) of the EARTH.
A SOLAR eclipse occurs when the moon gets between the earth and the sun.
Solar eclipses are more common (once every 2 years, offhand), than lunar eclipses (once every 4 years).
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.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Any materials obtained here would still need to be sent to the moon, and then to Mars.
Except the tons and tons of hydrogen, oxygen, and water that you are going to extract from the ice frozen in the ice caps in the poles. In addition, they might be thinking of mining the ice, which would involve tunneling. To me this makes a lot of sense, as several meters of rock is wonderful protection from high speed rocks, is wonderful insulation to help maintain a constant tempature, and is a cheap way to add to the size of the space station without having to build entire new modules. The moon would be a good place to put a telescope, since it is massive enough to be stable, unlike an inhabited orbital platform, and could be the start of a massive Very Long Baseline array for looking at really distant objects. Plus, it could be the start of permanent off world colonies. Mars is a good idea, but it's kind of a long first trip. Plus, It will give us extra time, as invading aliens will probably stop to level the moonbase before attacking earth.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Free MacMini
Now that the Chinese, Indian and Japanese all profess an interest in colonizing the moon.. the question is, will the first nation who reach the site claim its entirety, and how valid would that claim be?
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Great idea. Oregon would be an ideal place to build a moon base. Not only could we use the lava tubes for potection against solar radiation, but the logistics would be much simpler and cheaper. Putting everything on rockets and sending it a quarter million (or so) miles to the moon would be really difficult and expensive. It would so much easier to just have it delivered to Oregon in the first place. UPS and Fedex even go there, already.
The main requirement for a trip to Mars are volatiles for fuel and life support, and the moon has almost none of those.
Sure, there is lots of metal oxide laying around on the moon for building an empty ship out of ; but even then, the standard processes we have for making steel or aluminum require large amounts of carbon (to reduce the oxides) and water (to cool down the molten metals afterwards). Again, the moon just doesn't have those.
If we could find a Near-Earth asteroid with abundant volatiles like water ice and ammonia ice, it'd make more sense to build a base there than on the moon.
>;k
Hello, beloved earthlings.
We have been observing your earthworld with moonminds vast and merry for many moonyears. You earthtechnological earthachievements are moonimpressive to our moonminds.
Unfortunately, we mooninites are fighting a civil moonwar. Moonsibling is killing moonsibling. As Moonheir to the Moonthrone, I am trusted with protecting the ample Moontreasury.
Fellow sapients, the Moon needs your earthhelp. I need to transfer the equivalent of $50,000 USD to two thousand and one Earth banking accounts. In order to do so, my moonsubterfuge moonskills will have to deceive the earthbankers.
I plead with you on my moonknees.
Please let me transfer $50,000 USD to your earthaccount. The moonmoney will have to stay earthhidden for at least pi earthdecades. I trust you will earthsafeguard it from the moonpretenders to the Moonthrone.
We will moonreward all earthhumans moongenerously.
In order for me to transfer $50,000 to you, I need an initial earthmoney fund to earthbribe the earthbankers. Please send me $500 now, and I will moonreimburse you in the transfer.
The Moon cries out for your earthhelp as the moonpretenders moonrape, moonravage, and moonraze their way to my moonpalace. Please take my $50,000.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
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.
The Moon has about 1/6 Earth Gravity
Mars has about 1/3 Earth Gravity.
Assuming a 6-foot man can jump 6 feet on Earth, he could jump about 1/(1/6)*3 + 3 feet for a total of 21 feet on The Moon, 1/(1/3)*3 +3 for a total of 12 feet on Mars. Keep in mind when a 6-foot man jumps 6 feet here on Earth he is only lifting his CENTER of gravity 3 feet with a starting height of 3 feet for it.
Letter To Iran
you sure wouldn't want to stick it where the sun don't shine.
P.S. - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.