Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn’t we do those things directly, without going there?
It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.
I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that’s why we poors support it, but that doesn’t “pay the bills.” What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?
Haven’t read all the responses, but in case nobody’s said it: the moon will never be easily terraformed into a stable environment, so the primary reason for moon habitation, aside from telescopes which require no fuel for orbital maintenance (and have no atmosphere with which to contend), is that the moon is a significantly easier place both to construct and launch rockets, so if we can get asteroid mining going, a moon base would allow significantly increased accessibility for rocketry for other missions.
For Mars, I figure it’s twofold:
- don’t have all your eggs in one basket. If earth becomes uninhabitable for some reason, having a self-sustaining population on Mars could be the only hope for continuation of the human race.
- direct study of Martian soils and other samples to determine if life has ever existed, or even currently exists, elsewhere in the solar system.
As someone pointed out, however, the current society is so focused on funneling wealth and power to only a few prime exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect, that to attempt actual colonisation when they are the ones who’d control the colonies would be violently, unbelievably stupid and be even more likely to lead to total extinction of life on Earth
It’s a good lauchpad to reach farther distances. It’s much easier to launch through the moon’s atmosphere than the Earth’s, making it the best staging ground to go to Mars or the Asteroid belt, where there might be some valuable minerals or something.
We like the moon, because its close to us We like the moon, but not as much as a spoon!
It is a really good “proving ground” for longer term human habitation of something like a settlement on a foreign body, without being so far away that some kind of rescue is basically impossible should something go wrong.
Also, going from Earth > Moon > Mars, or where ever, is probably less complex from a total at one time payload perspective than trying to move everything you would need for that longer term destination all at once.
Plus as you alluded to, you can’t really put a price on the political good will that comes from doing something like that. The Moon is a cheaper way to get that good will and some experience from point one as a starting point.
have awesome space sex
The old “strip it of all resources and anything else of value” gambit will suffice for this and all others in the future.
Is there some benefit Delta V wise to having a lunar or orbiting lunar base perhaps?
Yes, the escape velocity is much less for both.
we actually seem not at all concerned about doing anything with the moon, it’s either launching more satellites or going to mars.
The logical answer would be send robots. But, let’s face it. They’ll probably keep cloning and killing some poor bastard with fake implanted memory to do their bidding in a perpetual cycle.
I don’t think the logical answer is ‘robots’. Humans are cheap and always have been, and it’s easy to make more. That’s the basis of human civilization for 500,000+ years. Expand, strip resources, and expand more. As we destroy this planet, we either find somewhere else to do the same, or perish as a species. Could you go the other way and limit resource exploitation, limit consumerism, limit unfettered reproduction? Sure. But that’s not happening.
Yeah, I mean, we do send robot rovers places. Which I guess is similar in some sense.
Realistically, building stuff. If you want to build large radiotelescooe or space observatory you can’t launch it in one piece.
Other use case would be to run refueling and launch station, given there’s a water ice on the moon, it makes possible to convert it into hydrogen + oxygen and refuel landing vehicles to launch them on a far missions
Cetain machining can be acehieved in low or no gravity as well much more easily than on earth.
Not sure if “certain machining” is good enough to warrant the insane transport costs
Only if the transporting is to outer space.
We wanna be on da MOON BABY!! Dats why we wanna moon da moon babayyyy, finna jump and bounce around around low gravity babaeeee gotta collect rocks and shit babaaaaa gotta set uo dos fool’s telescopics for alien tities bwaaawbawaaaaa
(Collect and research materials in space far easier and launch rockets more cost effectively. Also for more budget experiments and observations not possible on earth due to the atmosphere/high gravity) bwabaaaaweeeeeeewwwww
Also: moon-jerking.
Ask investors for more money
Next question
I’d love to hear about radio telescopes on the far side to research the Universe, but I’m not writing the checks. Or am I – since US govt. taxpayer funds are getting spent in Melon’s yard.
Resources that are minimally available on Earth.
Example: The moon has Helium-3 and is close (in comparison to other celestial bodies).
Is it economically viable? Is it ethical? Ehhhhhhhh. I would say no, but Elon “Head Up His Own Ass” Musk would disagree.
Probably just as ethical as Europeans coming to North America and taking over native land and exploiting it’s resources for personal gain as the cost of the environment and the people already living there, but ethics gets tricky when you really think about it.
It’s much more ethical than that. There are no native beings living on the Moon, and no real environmental concerns. Mars is slightly more complicated because it is possible there was once life there, and perhaps some microbes survive somewhere, but that’s unlikely.
I think you would be ignoring the ethics of the energy used and costs of getting off the planet as well. May be more ethical and cheaper to take those funds and reinvest in making the earth a better place rather than leaving it.
Realistically, the Moon would likely carry a mix of science, mining, and power installations.
Science - You can set up a large telescope on the far side of the Moon which won’t have an atmosphere to compete with. There are some concepts which would use existing craters to keep the cost low.
Mining - It is possible for there to be rare earth minerals on the Moon. There is also Helium-3 in the regolith. A country may choose to have a colony on the Moon address terrestrial shortages.
Power - The Moon makes an excellent site to collect solar power. That power could possibly be beamed/reflected to Earth, used to refine high electrical demand materials, or be a site for compute.
As this gets built out, the Moon will likely become a manufacturing hub, especially for missions beyond the Earth-Moon gravity well due to lower launch costs.
Also more variety of launch options, I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure you could use a aircraft carrier style magnetic catapult to launch ion powered probes and whatnot into orbit from the moon.
