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That's like going back to the 17th century and decrying the exploration of the New World because you're not certain just how much gold there may be and you can'

That's like going back to the 17th century and decrying the exploration of the New World because you're not certain just how much gold there may be and you can't predict what the New World economy might look like. Barring drastic efficiency increases in launch technology (to a Star Wars style level of ease) a lunar base is essential to enabling a space economy not suffocated by heavy shipping and transaction costs incurred by the cost of fuel and launches. When the cost of shipping materials around in space isn't drastically more expensive than Amazon sending you a package, then you'll find out exactly what we want to build.

make3 9y ago
Except that back then they couldn't see what was in the new world. Now we can (on the moon), and know that there isn't much. Also, it would take a lot more than just sending people there for them to be mostly be self sufficient like in the 17th century, because: - there is no oxygen, - there is no food, - there is no water, - there is no magnetosphere.
- bonesss 9y ago
  We can make [oxygen from moon rocks](https://phys.org/news/2009-08-scientists-oxygen-moon.html https://phys.org/news/2009-08-scientists-oxygen-moon.html). There is [water on the moon](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/feature_ice_like_deposits.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/featur...). With oxygen, water, and power, we can make food. Appropriate radiation shielding is a matter of construction, which could occur on the moon itself using local materials ideally, or building underground enough to be shielded. Moon habitation is something that makes little sense for its own benefit, but immense sense in an orbital supply chain for... I dunno... harvesting a few trillion dollars worth of minerals. Space exploration will not be easy. Navigating accurately across thousands of miles of ocean on [a homemade raft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation) with only a coconut named Wilson and your hands isn't easy either :)
  - IdeaHamstir 9y ago
    > With oxygen, water, and power, we can make food. And carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium... The lunar surface seems to have these elements in short supply, though C-type asteroids can provide many of them.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    We are going to need a POC for that. Here's a rock, there's ice in Alaska; go survive. Oh, and you have to do it with mittens on. Good luck!
    - bonesss 9y ago
      Show me the infinity He-3 and Mega-Billions in platinum I can make in an exclusive environment mankind is obligated to conquer on the timeline of a few short hundred years and I will show you some Multi-Billionaires willing to invest heavily as soon as the intersection of orbital access and autonomous robotics is potent enough to mine the crap our of that, and any other, 'Alaska'... Some imagine it will be many decades [never done those before!], until it's cost viable and some imagine 2020 or 2025 [0]. And I think my vision, and Elon Musks, has something more like autonomous driven lunar vehicles powered by machine learning and mesh networks for robust exploration. Like... 15 Teslas talking over wifi but with no traffic, no time limits, no pedestrians, no speed limits or laws against having jump rockets... I totally agree we have to build PoCs, and test new equipment, and do science, and do engineering. But most of the "hard parts" WRT to survival have been done on earth [for a poor ROI on earth!], and the really hard parts WRT time differentials and manufacturing look very much like self driving cars and robots made for the moon or mars. Teslas and Foxconn, friend. Europa is just... what we do every day in Subsea exploration + what we do every day with our _amazing_ rover program. I'm not saying we're there tomorrow. I'm saying that if our robots are there next week making oxygen generators and water pumps and harvesting and collecting, with steady resupplies of better robots and smarter factories, we could Kerbal ourselves f-ing far. H2O is rocket fuel - pure delta-v. Independent mining robots could extract the raw ore for our Expanse/BSG-ish space fleets over the next hundred years, and your grandkids could figure out how to spend an asteroids belt worth of mineral fortune :) There are many Billions being spent on this pursuit today, in 2018. Cynicism aside, sometimes the VCs know a thing or two... - [0] - https://www.inverse.com/article/33556-asteroid-mining-multi-trillion-dollar-business-asteroid-day-2017 https://www.inverse.com/article/33556-asteroid-mining-multi-...
gozur88 9y ago
>That's like going back to the 17th century and decrying the exploration of the New World because you're not certain just how much gold there may be and you can't predict what the New World economy might look like. No it isn't. Exploration of the new world offered obvious substantive benefits - the trees alone were priceless to a countries that had to manage forests very carefully, not to mention new and useful crops coupled with an abundance of land. In short, it was a no-brainer. And it was extremely cheap compared to building space infrastructure, since food could be grown or purchased from the natives, there was air, sunburn was the only radiation problem. In space we'll have none of that. There are unsettled regions on earth far more hospitable to human life than anything we'll find outside our gravity well. The idea we ought to sink trillions of dollars into and infrastructure to produce things that are already good enough is hard to justify.

make3 9y ago

Except that back then they couldn't see what was in the new world. Now we can (on the moon), and know that there isn't much. Also, it would take a lot more than just sending people there for them to be mostly be self sufficient like in the 17th century, because: - there is no oxygen, - there is no food, - there is no water, - there is no magnetosphere.

bonesss 9y ago
We can make [oxygen from moon rocks](https://phys.org/news/2009-08-scientists-oxygen-moon.html https://phys.org/news/2009-08-scientists-oxygen-moon.html). There is [water on the moon](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/feature_ice_like_deposits.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/multimedia/featur...). With oxygen, water, and power, we can make food. Appropriate radiation shielding is a matter of construction, which could occur on the moon itself using local materials ideally, or building underground enough to be shielded. Moon habitation is something that makes little sense for its own benefit, but immense sense in an orbital supply chain for... I dunno... harvesting a few trillion dollars worth of minerals. Space exploration will not be easy. Navigating accurately across thousands of miles of ocean on [a homemade raft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation) with only a coconut named Wilson and your hands isn't easy either :)
- IdeaHamstir 9y ago
  > With oxygen, water, and power, we can make food. And carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium... The lunar surface seems to have these elements in short supply, though C-type asteroids can provide many of them.
- mcguire 9y ago
  We are going to need a POC for that. Here's a rock, there's ice in Alaska; go survive. Oh, and you have to do it with mittens on. Good luck!
  - bonesss 9y ago
    Show me the infinity He-3 and Mega-Billions in platinum I can make in an exclusive environment mankind is obligated to conquer on the timeline of a few short hundred years and I will show you some Multi-Billionaires willing to invest heavily as soon as the intersection of orbital access and autonomous robotics is potent enough to mine the crap our of that, and any other, 'Alaska'... Some imagine it will be many decades [never done those before!], until it's cost viable and some imagine 2020 or 2025 [0]. And I think my vision, and Elon Musks, has something more like autonomous driven lunar vehicles powered by machine learning and mesh networks for robust exploration. Like... 15 Teslas talking over wifi but with no traffic, no time limits, no pedestrians, no speed limits or laws against having jump rockets... I totally agree we have to build PoCs, and test new equipment, and do science, and do engineering. But most of the "hard parts" WRT to survival have been done on earth [for a poor ROI on earth!], and the really hard parts WRT time differentials and manufacturing look very much like self driving cars and robots made for the moon or mars. Teslas and Foxconn, friend. Europa is just... what we do every day in Subsea exploration + what we do every day with our _amazing_ rover program. I'm not saying we're there tomorrow. I'm saying that if our robots are there next week making oxygen generators and water pumps and harvesting and collecting, with steady resupplies of better robots and smarter factories, we could Kerbal ourselves f-ing far. H2O is rocket fuel - pure delta-v. Independent mining robots could extract the raw ore for our Expanse/BSG-ish space fleets over the next hundred years, and your grandkids could figure out how to spend an asteroids belt worth of mineral fortune :) There are many Billions being spent on this pursuit today, in 2018. Cynicism aside, sometimes the VCs know a thing or two... - [0] - https://www.inverse.com/article/33556-asteroid-mining-multi-trillion-dollar-business-asteroid-day-2017 https://www.inverse.com/article/33556-asteroid-mining-multi-...

gozur88 9y ago

>That's like going back to the 17th century and decrying the exploration of the New World because you're not certain just how much gold there may be and you can't predict what the New World economy might look like. No it isn't. Exploration of the new world offered obvious substantive benefits - the trees alone were priceless to a countries that had to manage forests very carefully, not to mention new and useful crops coupled with an abundance of land. In short, it was a no-brainer. And it was extremely cheap compared to building space infrastructure, since food could be grown or purchased from the natives, there was air, sunburn was the only radiation problem. In space we'll have none of that. There are unsettled regions on earth far more hospitable to human life than anything we'll find outside our gravity well. The idea we ought to sink trillions of dollars into and infrastructure to produce things that are already good enough is hard to justify.