They say they are gonna shoot the moon to see if theres ice.
Though, we need oxygen to, probably get some factories up there and at least make an atmosphere of some kind of gas.
And gravity. It would be awful when your mail gets delivered and it floats off.
So, would you guys move to a moon colony if you got the chance?
I don't understand why we would want to colonize the moon. The climate is beyond inhospitable requiring great amounts of work to do anything with. The travel to and from the moon would be extremely expensive, getting materials there would also. there are so many expenses.Moon has much lower gravity than Earth and no atmosphere, so launching stuff from it is cheaper. I think it has similar mineral resources to Earth, so it can be mined. So a Moon base would make it much cheaper to construct space vehicles of all types. More immediately, communications satellites could be deployed to Earth's orbit at a fraction of the current costs.
All these costs, for what? It would be easier and more profitable to set up a base in the middle of the Sahara.
And due to the interesting property of no oxygen, all metals produced up there instantly fuse together when they touch. The only thing preventing that down here on earth is an oxide coating on all of our metals. Imagine production where welding is no longer necessary. Hell, what kind of space metals can be made in microgravity?:-\ What?
in the long run.and that is why it won't happen unless we get some big changes. who cares about long run? lets get all the money we can now.
And due to the interesting property of no oxygen, all metals produced up there instantly fuse together when they touch. The only thing preventing that down here on earth is an oxide coating on all of our metals.
I thought the Moon had a rudimentary atmosphere?
And gravity. It would be awful when your mail gets delivered and it floats off.
I thought the Moon had a rudimentary atmosphere?
It has about 6m/s^2 of gravity.1/6th og Earth's gravitationall acceleration equals ~1,6 m/s2
And then we develop FTL travel and the first ship to use itdisappears mysteriouslygets eaten by Cthulhu.
I would love to live on a terraformed mars or the moon, but otherwise life would be pretty bland. Live inside a metal shell, depend on Earth for food... not fun.
If the moon is colonized, it will be for mining purposes. Not mining of anything on the moon, but rather as a drop-point for automated asteroid mining, which presents an extremely rich amount of resources (both metal and carboniferous/water), and a construction base to actually build and launch the automated miners. At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply. Then and only then will the moon really begin to be colonized, as the massive inflow of resources makes the quality of living there approachable to Earth's.
Attempting to colonize another planet(oid) for the purpose of relieving population problems is pointless, as the birth rate will almost certainly exceed the passenger capacity for the forseeable future, but at the same time if there is overcrowding going on in developed countries with disposable income, there will be people that want to get away from it and go somewhere exotic. That would provide a small boost to the existing miner family population, further increasing the growth of any colony, but it would likely be quite small indeed. Colonies, if they occur, are going to be very poor at first, and very rich and exclusive towards the end.
These aren't all my predictions. Arthur C. Clarke I believe is the one responsible for turning me on to space mining :P It makes a lot of sense when you consider that the fuel for a mining vehicle (which really could be any kind of mass at all) can be harvested at the source. And Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson are the first books I've ever seen acknowledge the fact that it would take thousands of grueling and wasteful years to significantly decrease the population of Earth using colonization alone, if it's possible at all.
If the moon is colonized, it will be for mining purposes. Not mining of anything on the moon, but rather as a drop-point for automated asteroid mining, which presents an extremely rich amount of resources (both metal and carboniferous/water), and a construction base to actually build and launch the automated miners. At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply. Then and only then will the moon really begin to be colonized, as the massive inflow of resources makes the quality of living there approachable to Earth's.
At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.
At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.
By the end of our lifetimes we will probably see the moon colonized and nearly fully developed, and possibly the foundations of colony's on mars, unless a apocalyptic-class event happens.
Getting to be a colonist would probably be restricted to very, VERY rich people for quite a few years until advancing technology makes it possible for people to move to the moon with a rather large loan. Many industry's would probably move to the moon, as theres no atmosphere to fuck up, thus boosting the Lunar Economy.
So, would you guys move to a moon colony if you got the chance? It seems to be the topic of discussion everywhere nowadays, on the internets, the news..
By the end of our lifetimes we will probably see the moon colonized and nearly fully developed, and possibly the foundations of colony's on mars, unless a apocalyptic-class event happens.
Getting to be a colonist would probably be restricted to very, VERY rich people for quite a few years until advancing technology makes it possible for people to move to the moon with a rather large loan. Many industry's would probably move to the moon, as theres no atmosphere to fuck up, thus boosting the Lunar Economy.
So, would you guys move to a moon colony if you got the chance? It seems to be the topic of discussion everywhere nowadays, on the internets, the news..
actually, with minerals, can't we just drop the rock in a desert, without parachutes and containers?At that point you have a man-made meteor :P It would burn up.
It's possible to send cargo to Earth in this way. The big problem would be making sure it got where it was supposed to. That involves moving it off of the moon on the right trajectory from the moon to land in a specific area, or sending it directly to Earth from the mining operation, which is an even greater navigational challenge but possibly cheaper. The question is, will people want hundreds of tons of nickel-iron and minerals to fall from the sky on a regular basis? There's bound to be an accident at one point. The same thing I think will sink a space-elevator into a slow financial death. Could be wrong there. I hope so, I want to go to space.At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.
It'd be interesting to see the economics of actually doing that. for regular minerals, eg iron etc, i don't see it becoming cheaper to do it in space for a long time yet.Quoting wikipedia here, but
In 2004, the world production of iron ore exceeded a billion metric tons.[1] In comparison, a comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron-nickel ore,[2] or two to three times the annual production for 2004. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of nickel-iron, which could supply the 2004 world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also contain precious metals, although these would likely be more difficult to extract.Keep in mind, virtually all iron on earth is extracted from ore, an energy- and resource-expensive process. Many asteroids are composed of much higher grade materials by comparison. The economics would have to be worked out carefully for sure, but so long as fuel for the mining operations and return trip is processed in-situ, most existing mining companies would jump at the chance for a claim like that, if they had a reasonable estimate of the equipment's reliability.
We will eventually have a colony on the moon. Why?
Scientific willy-waving.
"We got here first because we have a giganticpenisresearch grant!"
At that point, the problem without a space-elevator (which I predict will be started but never finished) would be getting those resources to earth cheaply.Why? Just package the products in some heat shields, attach parachutes and give them a nudge towards the Earth, gravity will do the rest. Now getting stuff up from Earth is a whole different matter.
i know that what i suggested would burn the material, but as long as it doesn't evaporate, then what is wrong with it? would the external heat drop quality of the mineral?It evaporates.
of course some would be wasted, but it would also be cheap. still, maybe parachutes are a good idea. flaming meteors are bad as far as advertising goes.
We will eventually have a colony on the moon. Why?Sig'd, this pretty much sums it all up. Same goes for mars. And then, Pluto, Alpha Centauri, the Pegasus Galaxy, and fending off the inevitable wraith while changing the colour of the stargates into something slightly cooler. Owait.
Scientific willy-waving.
"We got here first because we have a giganticpenisresearch grant!"
And so we don't die. Actually, i realize now that that's just about it. Because it's there and so we won't die.
I do it for the Emperor, and to get space tail!
(the same side of the moon is always facing the sun.)
If I designed a moon colony, I'd put it underground, with pressurized steel tunnels. Solar arrays on the surface would provide energy constantly (the same side of the moon is always facing the sun.) It would help with shielding people from solar radiation (as I believe Palazzo said.)Oh, you must've misunderstood Palazzo's words.
(the same side of the moon is always facing the sun.)
I think your confused there mate. the same side of the moon always faces us, not the sun.
One day, people will look back at the 20th and 21st century and wonder why we couldn't understand that space colonization was so easy.because we couldn't see farther than our mobile phone /MP3.
lag on the moon will always be several seconds, no matter what infrastructure you build. it is about light speed. moon is far.
move to a moon colony... if i had the chance, i think i would do it.
I read an article about how teleportation might speed up computers. It's currently not possible to use teleportation in computing or utilise it in network connections, but maybe in 50 years the scientists will figure out something. If you could have a teleporter you wouldn't have to send anything physical over a distance and thus be limited by the speed of light.I think you mean quantum computing. Don't even think about using quantum teleportation principles on humans or other objects, quantums are quantums and atoms are atoms.
Quantums are not atoms, but they are 1)physical and 2)countable. Therefore, they can carry information. If you can cause a sequence of signals in a receiver using quantum teleportation, you will solve the problem of internet on Mars.
Btw, with the Moon always facing the Earth, all that would be needed for a Moon->Earth transportation system (with more or less pinpoint accuracy) is a magnetic acceleration railway a few kilometers in length. Think one of those odd rollercoaster-like thingys, but on a bigger scale and with the track just ending instead of circling around to the exit booth. Solar panels provide power, and cargo can be shipped once a month without trouble. Of course, that's assuming you don't make a whole lot of them solar arrays all over the surface.
I expect to see the moon colonized in our lifetimes, not for the He3, but for the iron and silicon ("moondust" is silicon+oxygen). With little more then iron, one can create a very large space station at the L4 or L5 lagrange points between the earth and the moon. Simply rotate the station to produce artificial gravity and viola, you have an environment better then anything on earth.
Well, i've not done the actual calculations, but the odds are that the launch ramp itself would need to be on the far side of the moon. And as i said before, the moon does have days, so solar would stop working.
The launch ramp would only need to be a few meters long, similar to the launch ramp of an aircraft carrier. Heck, you can achieve moon escape velocity with a catapult.
I think the rail would still be cheaper than rockets. It could be powered by He3, I guess.
I think the rail would still be cheaper than rockets. It could be powered by He3, I guess.
Or Fusion.
Hey, isn't there was a project to make a (successful) nuclear-powered rockets?
Can't we just use it on the moon?
With the Moon's gravity being 1/6th of the Earth, I'd suspect you need quite a bit less than 3km/s to leave the Moon's orbit. Since your target is the object you're orbiting, you can further reduce the requirement by launching in the direction opposite to the orbital movement, allowing the target's gravity to do more work. If we're talking constant acceleration rather than raw speed, you need to provide a measly 1.63m/s2 of thrust to get off the Moon, versus the Earth's 10 (or 9-point-something).
After some Wiki browsing, the escape velocity on the Moon is 2.38 km/s. A 1kg object could be accelerated to that with 2380 Newtons of force acting over a second, or five times that in the time of a catapult's swing. I think a catapult could well shove something off the Moon.
What use would be a giant prism on the dark side of the moon? Also, the dark side of the moon is moving, it would have to be mounted on a mobile chassis. There's a similar problem with a theoretical colony on Mercury, you have to remain in the comfort zone just between the light and dark sides, so you have to have a mobile base.I've actually read quite a neat idea for a Mercury colony. I think it was in one of Asimov's books, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, the colony was built on rails that went around the whole planet. Due to heat, the rails expand on the side that's facing the Sun, and this expansion pushes the colony towards place where rails are less expanded, ie shade. This was fine-tuned so the colony was always in the twilight zone (pardon the pun).
Nuclear-powered jets. They heat the air with gas pipes passed through a nuclear reactor instead of burning fuel. Only the Soviets were successful in make an actual airplane with the technology, and their design was... messy, at best. Polluting the air, irradiating the crew...There was this "Project Orion" thingy, to use micro-nukes for a propulsion. Basically, dropping a bomb every few seconds off the ships ass and letting the blast push it. The only thing that stopped it's development were pollution concerns.
They won't work on the moon, for obvious reasons.
Unless you mean ion thrusters or something of the kind.
Btw, I remember some people saying that cargo containers will burn up on reentry. Um.. hello? The Moon's relative orbital velocity is tiny compared to the satellites and other stuff in Earth's orbit. Given a "barely sufficient" nudge, they will be hardly experiencing more friction than airliners when they enter the upper layers. Deploy initial chutes for additional deceleration in the upper layers, then main chutes for landing. No need for any additional protection except shielding if the cargo is sensitive to solar radiation.
What use would be a giant prism on the dark side of the moon?For purposes of progressive rock.
They would be if it was actually cold in space. In space, it's actually rather hot unless you completely reflect outside heat, in which case it's just cool. Even the dark side of the Moon is only cold because of the whatever negligible atmosphere that exists there. Without a medium to take heat away, space is only cold to objects that actively radiate heat.
They say they are gonna shoot the moon to see if theres ice.
Though, we need oxygen to, probably get some factories up there and at least make an atmosphere of some kind of gas.
And gravity. It would be awful when your mail gets delivered and it floats off.
For the record, 1/3 of water is oxygen. They could split the molecules given something else the hydrogen an bond to (I believe such a system is used in some submarines).
Don't know what we'd do for fun, though. I imagine that we'd have to spend a good deal of time working out in order to account for the low gravity. After that, I guess we could just play DF on NASA supercomputers ;D
2.Water needs-Simply bring alot of water on the colony ship and COMPLETELY reuse it in a treatment plant.
8.Energy-Solar PANELS! As well as a nuclear power plant, if ever needed.
2.Water needs-Simply bring alot of water on the colony ship and COMPLETELY reuse it in a treatment plant.
8.Energy-Solar PANELS! As well as a nuclear power plant, if ever needed.
because we can completely reuse water. and because kids dont need any. you need a relatively easily accessible water source for any kind of permanent settlement.
and the energy density of solar power is ridiculously low. fusion reactors would be best in systems with the appropriate resources - eg ours, with he3 from jupiter, and geothermal for planetoids with a warm core. i did read about using the rotation of the habitat cylinder to generate electricity from a planet's magnetic field, but im doubting thatll actually work.
Fusion has been about 30 years away for about thirty years, as the old scientific joke goes.fix'd :p
Nuclear fusion isn't strictly necessary to colonise the moon, as there's always good ol' fission, considering it might be a bit easier to dispose of the waste on the moon. However, fusion is always a good idea in my opinion, and in this day, I reckon it really is only 30-70 years away.
Fusion has been around for a long time, it's just fusion with net energy gain that has always been 30 years away.This is essentially what I refer to. I think there's a South Korean project that's trying to break even.
or centrifugal (mechanically challenging and time consuming) processing.Time consuming can be offset by starting early. Mechanically challenging just means that you can send a more limited number of units, because they would likely have to be larger to ensure operation.
Getting metal out of the moon is definitely a non-trivial problem. The question in this case is more of energy for any and all reactions, and reagent materials for chemical production. Compared to that, automation of it all is almost straight forward
We really do know very little about what's available on the surface besides what we can tell from orbit, which is very vague, and what we've physically recovered is a lot less than most geologists would like. But the reason Earth is so abundant in the diverse minerals we use for refining is because of how dynamic its conditions are through history. The moon is basically tectonically inert (although I wonder about what else might have made it close to the surface during the cooling phase), and there's no atmosphere or flowing water to cause that kind of wear. Everything is weathered almost exclusively by solar energy. It's like a worn old photograph of the extremely ancient event that created the thing.
What I'm wondering is if we might be able to recover some of the materials from impact craters, especially on the far side, which is completely covered in them. On earth it would be utterly pointless unless it had happened very recently, but without an atmosphere or moisture, metal-rich asteroids could be buried relatively close to the surface, deep enough to be protected completely from the energy of the sun. Since there's very little weathering going on for the crater rims and geology, that might also simplify narrowing down where to dig for the object.
I haven't heard this discussed anywhere, and I wonder if it's been considered.
Fully colonized? Within our lifetimes? Australia isn't even fully colonized! And while that place is more dangerous than the Moon we have enough of a head-start to make up for it.What does that tell you about Australia?
In Australia, even the trees want to kill you, and there are snakes in the sea..Fully colonized? Within our lifetimes? Australia isn't even fully colonized! And while that place is more dangerous than the Moon we have enough of a head-start to make up for it.What does that tell you about Australia?
I haven't read the previous 8 pages so forgive me if this is a repeat
processing of iron and aluminum for the structural components of a colony.Did you just say oxide of aluminum? Isn't that BAUXITE!!! MAGMA-PROOF, YAY!!!!!
There is no magma on the moon D:processing of iron and aluminum for the structural components of a colony.Did you just say oxide of aluminum? Isn't that BAUXITE!!! MAGMA-PROOF, YAY!!!!!
But then we can import bauxite for our fortresses from the moon outpost.Why not import magma to the Moon?
We'd need a lot of screw pumps.But then we can import bauxite for our fortresses from the moon outpost.Why not import magma to the Moon?
Remember how they asploded those rockets on the moon 'bout a month ago in that permanently shadowed crater?
It found water.
Lots of it.
About 25 gallons worth, from a report i was reading. Google even made today a little holiday-thingy where they put it up on the website for the thing. Gonna make moon colonies that much easier.
"a dozen 2-gallon (7.6-liter) buckets"Remember how they asploded those rockets on the moon 'bout a month ago in that permanently shadowed crater?
It found water.
Lots of it.
About 25 gallons worth, from a report i was reading. Google even made today a little holiday-thingy where they put it up on the website for the thing. Gonna make moon colonies that much easier.
Let's not be insane here. 2 gallons: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091113-water-on-the-moon.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091113-water-on-the-moon.html)
Of course mining that water is still gonna be a bitch regardless. I wonder if it would just be easier to bring comet to the moon.this. we can have iron asteroids, why cant we have ice asteroids?
Yea. I wonder if the moonwater tastes good.
Then again, it probably has salt in it, but i'm not sure of that. No germs of course, since the moon is sterile and all that.
It's not like moon has atmosfer to burn the ice, right, guys?Of course mining that water is still gonna be a bitch regardless. I wonder if it would just be easier to bring comet to the moon.this. we can have iron asteroids, why cant we have ice asteroids?
Will it be difficult to build 2 solar plants, one of each side of the moon, so there's always one active ? Then you'll just have to transport it to a central base or something.
I don't know about the power loss in the transportation tough, even if the lack of atmosphere could mean there's less loss by heat ?
What is the temperature under the surface? If it isn't much warmer that the dark surface, it would be the optimal place, as it would retain it's low temperature better during the lunar day.
2) look at the european colonization of americaErr, replace the Native Americans with Lunar Rabbits?
What is the temperature under the surface? If it isn't much warmer that the dark surface, it would be the optimal place, as it would retain it's low temperature better during the lunar day.
Need I point out that nuclear power is somewhat resource-intensive?
It does require an input of materials, which are outputted as waste. This means that those materials must be imported to the moon. They'll be easier to get rid of, of course, than they are here.
For clarification, just research nuclear power plants. Fuel rods, etc.
Need I point out that nuclear power is somewhat resource-intensive?
It does require an input of materials, which are outputted as waste. This means that those materials must be imported to the moon. They'll be easier to get rid of, of course, than they are here.
For clarification, just research nuclear power plants. Fuel rods, etc.
A small self contained nuclear reactor can run for somewhere between 3 years and a decade without being refueled. And the actual weight of that fuel is insignificant, less than a person.
Need I point out that nuclear power is somewhat resource-intensive?
It does require an input of materials, which are outputted as waste. This means that those materials must be imported to the moon. They'll be easier to get rid of, of course, than they are here.
For clarification, just research nuclear power plants. Fuel rods, etc.
A small self contained nuclear reactor can run for somewhere between 3 years and a decade without being refueled. And the actual weight of that fuel is insignificant, less than a person.
Ok, instead of saying "that's extremely ignorant", I'll just point out that fuel is not the only input to a nuclear plant, and that I wasn't referring to fuel.
I'm talking about a real nuclear power plant, not a miniature. The kind that requires large amounts of power rods, etc. Something that produces enough power to do what we've discussed here.
I'm thinking nanobots that turn the regolith into solar panels.
The Moon
On the moon, the lunar highland material anorthite is similar to the earth mineral bauxite, which is an aluminium ore. Smelters can produce pure aluminum, calcium metal, oxygen and silica glass from anorthite. Raw anorthite is also good for making fiberglass and other glass and ceramic products.
Over twenty different methods have been proposed for oxygen extraction on the moon. Oxygen is often found in iron rich lunar minerals and glasses as iron oxide. The oxygen can be extracted by heating the material to temperatures above 900 °C and exposing it to hydrogen gas. The basic equation is: FeO + H2 → Fe + H2O. This process has recently been made much more practical by the discovery of significant amounts of hydrogen-containing regolith near the moon's poles by the Clementine spacecraft.
It has also been proposed to use lunar regolith as a general construction material, through processing techniques such as sintering, hot-pressing, liquification, and the cast basalt method. The cast basalt method is used on Earth for construction of, for example, pipes where a high resistance to abrasion is required. Cast basalt has a very high hardness of 8 Mohs (diamond is 10 Mohs) but is also susceptible to mechanical impact and thermal shock which could be a problem on the moon.
Glass and glass fibre are straightforward to process on the moon and Mars, and it has been argued that the glass is optically superior to that made on the Earth because it can be made anhydrous.[6] Successful tests have been performed on earth using two lunar regolith simulants MLS-1 and MLS-2.
In August 2005, NASA contracted for the production of 16 metric tons of simulated lunar soil, or "Lunar Regolith Simulant Material." This material, called JSC-1a, is now commercially available for research on how lunar soil could be utilized in-situ.