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[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

We will eventually have a colony on the moon. Why?
Scientific willy-waving.
"We got here first because we have a gigantic penis research grant!"

[Dwarf]

We will eventually have a colony on the moon. Why?
Scientific willy-waving.
"We got here first because we have a gigantic penis research grant!"

And, frankly, technology is knowledge, and knowledge is power. I think the moon, when colonized, will be more of a status symbol rather than of actual use until colonization is well established with mining and all.

[sneakey pete]

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.

That's not how it works. Your looking a changing its velocity by a significant amount to escape the moons gravity and then make your way down to earth. Its not a case of "give it a small nudge". A quick look around suggests 3-4km/h change in velocity to get it from the moons orbit to an earth orbit.
Now, you could use a railgun to make your packages fast enough to do that, however... those are big and expensive.

Edit: now i see that your just talking about earth reentry, not lunar transfer. but my point still stands. Stuff won't just fall from the moon back to earth, its energy intensive.

[DJ]

Well, you could use an orbital railgun to give it that small nudge. I'd wager it's much cheaper than a space elevator.

[zchris13]

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?
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.

It evaporates.

[Il Palazzo]

Velocities required to move a mineral packet from the Moon to Earth are much lower than those involved in our usual meteors encounters, so it could be quite feasible to just drop the thing and expect good survivability of such a packet. For comparision purposes, Earth moves around it's orbit at 30km/s, not counting planetoids' own orbital velocity, while as sneaky pete mentioned, 3km/s should be enough of a "nudge" for lunar mining purposes.
(no maths whatsoever performed. Just a general intuition)

Anyway, let me remind you - the only really valuable thing on the Moon, which can't be accessed cheaply on Earth is He³. It accumulated for millenia(or more accurately, since the Moon got it's surface solidified and tidally locked, whichever came first) on it's far side, where the bulk of it's mass acted as a shield for Earth's magnetic field, which has a healthy ability of deflecting ionized particles from solar wind, such as abovementioned helium isotope. Now, today He³ is very expensive to extract on Earth, but the demand is also very small, however, should the ongoing projects aiming at building commercially viable fusion reactor succeed, then it'd become a really valuable commodity indeed.

[Aldaris]

We will eventually have a colony on the moon. Why?
Scientific willy-waving.
"We got here first because we have a gigantic penis research grant!"

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.

[Luke_Prowler]

The conquest of space: because it's there.

[x2yzh9]

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.

[sneakey pete]

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.

That's the point not just of space colinization, but everything. And to have a bit of fun while doing it.

[zchris13]

I do it because it's ironic.

[sonerohi]

I do it for the Emperor, and to get space tail!

[Lord Dakoth]

We spent an entire chapter on terrestrial world colonization in my Astro class.

The biggest barrier in the way seems to be the complete lack of water and breathable air. The extreme temperatures could be counteracted by either going underground or by finding the "happy medium" place between the light and dark sides.

Of course, there is that issue with body fluids boiling in a vacuum...

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.)

We would need to be very stingy with water, perhaps almost Fremen-stingy. So, we'd have a waste processing plant to extract all of the moisture, and then perhaps use the rest for fertilizer.

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

[Psyco Jelly]

I do it for the Emperor, and to get space tail!

Congratulations! You are on the moon. Your choices are one of twenty other nerdy and overweight scientists... Or a crater.

[sneakey pete]

(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.