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Russia Talks Moon Base With NASA, ESA
milbournosphere writes "Russia and NASA are reportedly in talks to create a base on the Moon. They're looking to create either a facility on the Moon itself or a permanent space station in orbit around the moon. 'We don't want man to just step on the Moon,' agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said in an interview with Vesti FM radio station. 'Today, we know enough about it. We know that there is water in its polar areas,' he added. 'We are now discussing how to begin [the Moon's] exploration with NASA and the European Space Agency.'"
A) It's (relatively) not that big of a gravity well, and
B) It's pretty close to here for easy construction and resupply,
C) It's easier to protect it and its occupants from radiation and asteroids, and
D) There might be water available nearby, precluding the need to ship at least one thing up there constantly.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
If you spend too much time on the Moon, or in space for that matter, you could easily find yourself in a position where you're no longer able to stand the gravity of the Earth.
We understand zero/microgravity's effects on human beings pretty well. That said, the longest we've ever had a human on the Moon is 3 days--not really long enough to study anything. One of the things I wish we'd have been able to study on the ISS is the effect of various levels of gravity and their effect on humans. Unfortunately, that capability was cut.
Zero-G/Microgravity is not all that great for human beings. As I understand it, besides muscle issues (ie, not using them), there's also bone-loss. I believe these are dealt with on ISS via a combination of exercise and drugs. The problem is, we don't know how much gravity is necessary. Would 0.5G be enough? 0.25G? 0.16G (ie, lunar gravity)? Do we need gravity the whole time? Could we, for example, put beds in a 1G centrifuge so people get eight hours of 1G while they sleep but spend the rest of their time in Zero-G with no ill effects?
These are things that need to get figured out.
The Moon is too unstable for human underground habitation and strip mining is still the best way to mine if you can get away with it.
The moon is virtually dead geologically and has been for 3 billion years. "the energy associated with the Earth's seismic activity is about 10^14 times larger than that of the Moon"
(Dark side of the moon; more mining friendly?)
You do realize that it's not really dark, right? It is only "dark" in relation to the Earth, not the sun.
For shielding, why not use lead plates, bet yet gold
So you want to lift large amounts of very dense materials (or rare) from the earth to the moon rather than use the materials that are already there and adequate? I guessing you recently received your MBA.
The usual assumption by people who have worked on it seriously (I'm one of them, retired from Boeing, did advanced space studies while there), is you set up a habitat module, which is your Space Station type pressurized cylinder, and then over that you place a quonset hut type arched structure, which you pile lunar regolith (surface rocks and dust) on top of for shielding. Depending what level of shielding you want, it needs to be around 1-3 meters. Given the Moon's gravity, that's equivalent to 16-50 cm on Earth, which is quite reasonable. Your airlock, antennas, and such would poke out of the lunar dirt.
The other thing burying your habitat does is protect it from landing craft. The rocket exhaust from them tends to throw any loose dust around at high velocity. Even if you pave the landing pad itself, there will be loose dust around that.