What Shall We Do With the Moon Once We Get There?

MarkWhittington writes "For the first time in over thirty five years, the Moon has become the next frontier. The United States has committed to returning human astronauts to the Moon by the end of the next decade. China has hinted that it intends to do this also. A variety of countries, including the United States and China, but also India, Europe, and Japan, have either sent robotic probes into lunar orbit or are on the verge of doing so." Contribute your favorite moon ideas below; I'd like to see it used as the set to film The Moon is a Harsh Mistress .

Comments

Re:Also radio telescopes!

[Yath]

Then you'd want to shut it down for two weeks while the Sun is visible, and turn it on the rest of the time.

there is nothing shielding it from the RF interference from [...] the billions of other sources in the universe...

The ones we'd be observing with the telescope. I wouldn't call that "interference" - it's the signal.

Re:How about *nothing at all*?

[mjaworsk]

This is a problematic approach given the current direction in fusion energy research. The problem of D-He3 fusion is that the cross section for reactions is more difficult to attain than D-T fusion. Sure, there are neutrons involved in the latter, but obtaining satisfactory plasma conditions is the main reason we don't already have fusion power. To jump over to D-He3 and up the temperature and density requirements would push the plasma capabilities further still. Additionally, there's still the issue of fuel dilution, which in the case of D-T fusion, only a single He4 is left over to (somehow) remove. The neutron removes itself not being confined. In the case of D-He3, there's an He4 and a proton diluting the fuel, essentially, twice as much as in the D-T case. Dealing with fueling and fuel dilution issues is part of the mission of the ITER project, but there are still a lot of issues remaining in this area and it doesn't get easier with D-He3 fuels. Finally, claiming that the fuels will be aneutronic is not entirely correct. Namely, one still has a bunch of He3-He3 reactions as well as D-D reactions occurring whenever these species are in the same plasma. While having lower cross-sections than than the D-He3 reaction, they still occur and still produce neutrons. So even though the single D+He3 reaction is aneutronic, a reactor based on that fuel combination still will not be and will still have a non-zero activity level associated with it.