What should we do with the Moon?

[OXO]

Hi All,

What should we do with the Moon? as in Colonise it use it for mining minerals or just a small base for Deep Space exploration etc etc whats you views on the matter?

Thinking about a colony on the Moon brings warnings to me would we destroy the Moon as we have been doing with the earth? also Mining of the Resources of the Moon would mean a ever changing landscape with factory's and other ugly polluting constructions.

Having a Base for Deep Space Exploration would this mean more and more Base's would turn up and use up what little Natural Resources the Moon has in a matter of small time?..

Just a thought..

James

[GordonCopestake]

In 1980 NASA proposed putting self replicating robots on the moon to mine and manufacture goods that could then be shipped back to earth. This propsal said that they could realisticly achieve this goal in 20 years given a modest budget. The first idea was to create a space elevator from the materials using nanomaterials and from there LEO space stations and La Grange colonies. A quick google returned the full document. Heavy going though.

[OXO]

Nice find Gordon i'll read through this later

[The Warthog]

I think NASA should set up a great, big, red, green, and blue laser array, and project first-run movies onto it, with sound simulcast through PBS radio stations. When they gave up the idea as a bad job, there would then be thousands of cheap, high quality scopes on eBay, bought by yuppies who wanted to impress their friends. That's what I think!

[OXO]

Make it so

[crepitis]

What "Should" we do and what "Will" we do seem to be two very different

hypothesis when it comes to our track record of how we treat Solar sytem

objects.

Sadly, based on our past record, I would imagine that Mankind would pillage Luna

of all her natural resources, shake Her dry, and then move on to some other

easy target, learning no lessons, whatsoever, in the process.

[daz]

Kind of reminds me of the aliens in Independance Day.........

[MartinB]

Biggest use of the moon that I can see is tidal energy. On this point - if we harness tidal energy in a major way will that affect the pull of the earth on the moon and eventually affect the stability of it's orbit? For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction

[Naz]

Would that mean that if we all drove our cars westwards and braked at the same time, we would slow or stop the Earths rotation?

naz

[The Warthog]

Um, no. Driving your car eastward imparts a westward impulse to the earth, which is cancelled by your stopping, whether you brake, coast to a stop, or turn 180 degrees. The Moon and Earth's rotation and revolution however, are affected by each other.

I do worry about those wind generators, though. They are removing energy based on the Earth's rotation, which provides the prevailing west winds. The generators act like great big propellors, slowing the Earth bit by bit. Of course, if we encourage them, that could give us longer nights for viewing.

[Naz]

And longer daylight.

naz

[mark RD]

Um, no. Driving your car eastward imparts a westward impulse to the earth, which is cancelled by your stopping, whether you brake, coast to a stop, or turn 180 degrees. The Moon and Earth's rotation and revolution however, are affected by each other.

I do worry about those wind generators, though. They are removing energy based on the Earth's rotation, which provides the prevailing west winds. The generators act like great big propellors, slowing the Earth bit by bit. Of course, if we encourage them, that could give us longer nights for viewing.

I can see a bad case of well I will not be about to see the effect of that so why not :whip2:

RD

[Sunwind]

terraform it ^^

[astropete]

before we decide what to do with the moon, we will first have to decide who owns the moon, at present the moon belongs to mankind, not one nation.

[Kit-Fox]

Heres an idea, how about we do nothing with the moon?

Seriously we'd be better off trying to create a space elevator, which should really be possible at our current level of technological advancement & then create appropiate facilities in orbit.

As anything created would be in orbit, they would be easily reachable should emergencies arise by even the shuttles of today & of course attaching a re-entry pod would be so easy to do.

We also wouldnt have to ship such things like water/food etc as far as the moon & could use the evevator to do the actual heavy lifting reducing costs even further

[brianb]

Seriously we'd be better off trying to create a space elevator, which should really be possible at our current level of technological advancement

Sorry but we have no idea about how to manufacture cables/tapes strong enough. In 1mm lengths, maybe we can. In 40,000 km lengths, no way.

In any case, it would be a non starter unless/until all the junk within geosynchronous orbit distance was removed. That gets steadily more & more difficult as the volume of space debris increases at an almost exponential rate.

As anything created would be in orbit, they would be easily reachable should emergencies arise by even the shuttles of today

Well, the shuttles of today aren't going to be available after next year, in any case they are quite incapable of reaching geosynchronous orbit, which is (so far as orbital mechanics are concerned) 99% of the way to the moon.

at present the moon belongs to mankind, not one nation.

By what right has mankind claimed it? It certainly should not belong to nations, commercial organizations or individuals, though.

I don't think lunar materials should be allowed to be used for the benefit of anyone except those resident on the Moon. The cost of transport being what it is, I don't think treating it like Antarctica makes sense - the only sensible way of using the Moon is to go there as colonists, and "live off the land" as far as possible. At least there's no native ecosystem to destroy.

[Sunwind]

a space elevator would be amazing. it's just so sci-fi and having an actual real one would be so epic.. bring on the giant robots too

[Sam]

a space elevator would be amazing. it's just so sci-fi and having an actual real one would be so epic.. bring on the giant robots too

I wonder if we'll see it in our lifetimes?

[oceanheadted]

I read an article many years ago about development on the moon, it could provide an excellent platform for deep space imagaing and radio astronomy. Industrial activity would wreck it's science potential distrubing large amounts of dust that would take years to settle down again. I think the article said human activites on the moon had already lead to an increase in the atmospheric pressure on there!

There have been a number of articles about the potential for mining the isotope helium-3 which could be used in nuclear fusion. Apparently weight for weight it would be much more precious than gold so the cost benefit of retreiving it from the moon could work out...

[brianb]

Industrial activity would wreck it's science potential distrubing large amounts of dust that would take years to settle down again.

Not until the moon gets an atmosphere, not just an exosphere. Kick a piece of dust on the Moon's surface, it will either leave the vicinity of the Moon altogether or impact the surface within one hour.

I think the article said human activites on the moon had already lead to an increase in the atmospheric pressure on there!

Yeah, each Apollo spacecraft mission approximately doubled the amount of material in the lunar "atmosphere" - but because the individual molecules are essentially in collisionless orbits, and mostly travelling above escape velocity, the effect was purely temporary.

[John]

.....By what right has mankind claimed it? It certainly should not belong to nations, commercial organizations or individuals, though....

My thoughts as well - mankind hardly has a good track record of caring for natural resources ..... we are only motivated to do anything now because of the threat (percieved or otherwise) to OUR well being.

John

[astropete]

by mankind i mean the moon belongs to every one, not just one person or nation. i dare say the americans will claim all the sites of the apollo landings as their flag is planted at each site. but to mine the moon it would have to be a multi-nation affair and each nation on earth reaping the bennifits. how would we divide the moon into sectors if each nation capable of reaching the moon was to put up a claim, and would a moon rush ensue?

[Kit-Fox]

If I recall correctly, current international law and several UN mandates specify that the moon is an international territory & no nation may make any land grabs under any reasons.

Cant recall where I read it, but that was the basic gist of the article I read once regarding land ownership etc of the moon. Was around the time there was that fad for buying a plot of land on the moon & basically showed why those plot deeds etc were essentially expensive toilet paper.

[Brunty12345]

Hello I'd just like to say that they are actually thinking about making an elevator from earth straight to a space station, iv watched an astronomy channel about it so in the future it's gonna be very exciting

[Sam]

That'll be the Outer Space Treaty that basically gives the moon the same status as international water. No nations is allowed to claim anything on the moon (unless it's a spacecraft they put there).

If I recall correctly, current international law and several UN mandates specify that the moon is an international territory & no nation may make any land grabs under any reasons.

Cant recall where I read it, but that was the basic gist of the article I read once regarding land ownership etc of the moon. Was around the time there was that fad for buying a plot of land on the moon & basically showed why those plot deeds etc were essentially expensive toilet paper.