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Why Explore the Moon
- erwinh 7y agoFor those interested, further reading on ESA's Moon scientific goals https://sci.esa.int/documents/34161/35992/1567260389633-ESA_Strategy_for_Science_at_the_Moon.pdf https://sci.esa.int/documents/34161/35992/1567260389633-ESA_...
- persepoliisi 7y agoNASA telling the truth ? Oh please...
- hutzlibu 7y agoAh yes, after they contracted Stanley Kubrick to make the moon landings, then went straight on to making chem trails. Or have you other sources of information?
- bregma 7y agoAll the best evidence was destroyed by the controlled demolition of WTC-7 where the actual studio where they filmed the Apollo-11 landings was located.
- hutzlibu 7y agoSee, it all fits ..
- baud147258 7y agoNo need to use controlled demolition, the chemtrail chemicals in the planes burn hot enough to melt steel beams. (stolen from xkcd/966/)
- ChrisClark 7y agoYou believe the moon is real? Next you're going to tell me birds are real.
- mac_was 7y agoHow did water ended up on moon?
- uncertainquark 7y agoThat's a good question! The sources of lunar water are poorly understood. Some of it is formed as a result of hydrogen ions in the solar radiation hitting the oxygen present in the surface and forming water, and then being transported to the permanently shadowed regions. Another source, and likely a major one, is asteroids and comets, which were impacting vigorously during the early solar system. But to truly differentiate between the sources of water, sample are needed. This hasn't been done yet but will open a huge box of mysteries and also give insights into how the Moon formed.
- ShamelessC 7y agoWasn't the moon originally created due to a collision with the earth? Was there not any water for Earth to share with the moon when that happened?
- leto_ii 7y agoAt a glance the article doesn't seem to mention military motivations which are probably gonna be the driving force of lunar exploration.
- chaoz_ 7y agoWhat are the military motivations? What advantage does it provide?
- nradov 7y agoThere is no advantage. The US Army made plans for a moon base in 1959 but abandoned the project as pointless and unaffordable. http://www.astronautix.com/h/horizonlunaroutpost.html http://www.astronautix.com/h/horizonlunaroutpost.html
- mdorazio 7y agoThe moon is at the "top" of Earth's gravity well and has relatively low gravity itself. A simple launch system would allow you to shoot rocks at targets on earth whenever you want, using them as kinetic projectiles without the launch costs of putting rods into low Earth orbit. The down side, of course, is that any attacks from the moon would be slow, taking hours at minimum to reach targets.
- timerol 7y ago
- alexgmcm 7y agoBecause it is there.
- mobilio 7y agoSurprise! On Moon there is almost unlimited Helium-3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 "Much speculation has been made over the possibility of helium-3 as a future energy source. Unlike most other nuclear fusion reactions, the fusion of helium-3 atoms releases large amounts of energy without causing the surrounding material to become radioactive."
- hutzlibu 7y ago"The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon than on Earth, having been embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years,[5] though still lower in abundance than in the Solar System's gas giants" Sounds a bit different than, allmost unlimited. Also, there are great quantities of gold in seawater on earth. That does not mean, we have those great quantities avaiable.
- mobilio 7y agoWell - if we can get to the Moon, use it's H-3 as fuel for some engine, then maybe we can colonize Solar system. I know - energy is one of issues, but there are many more - solving cosmic radiation, life support systems, etc.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- valuearb 7y agoThere is plenty of Helium-3 on Earth too, which doesn't matter because Helium-3 doesn't matter. We can't build working fusion reactors now, and won't be able to do it for decades, and Helium-3 may not even be the best fuel when we do have working fusion reactors. It's like Columbus asking Queen Elizabeth for billions to explore Texas so we'll have fuel for Model Ts.
- microtherion 7y agoIt might have been difficult for Columbus to contact Elizabeth, given that their lifetimes did not overlap ;-)
- jimmySixDOF 7y agoAlso: Trump signs executive order to support moon mining, tap asteroid resources [1] https://www.space.com/trump-moon-mining-space-resources-executive-order.html https://www.space.com/trump-moon-mining-space-resources-exec...
- f055 7y agoWe, as humanity, simply have to explore beyond Earth to survive in the long term (meaning really long term, like next 1000 years). Moon, Mars, and beyond. It's evident that Earth is not big enough for all of us, today. What about the next 1000 years? Our population growth rate over the millennia looks very much like covids spread ;) so I guess there's nowhere else to go than space.
- hutzlibu 7y agoIn the really long term, like the next 5 billion years, definitely yes. But for mere survival we do not have to leave earth. At some point population growth would simply stagnate. When there is less food than humans. (which is a factor for quite some humans now) Now the side effects of this scenario on a big scale might wipe out humanity (if food wars get nuclear), but they don't have to. In either case, I am 100% pro space colonization, but I don't think we need to dramatize it.
- _curious_ 7y agoNice sub/read, thank you!
- szczepano 7y agoOne of these days Alice, bang! zoom! straight to the moon!
- valuearb 7y agoThey really don't make a good case, because the case for the moon is much weaker than Mars. • The moon has much more limited scientific value compared to Mars. Mars has a 4 billion year history that may have included life and may still include life. • Despite that much greater distance due to Aerobraking Mars takes less fuel to land on and it's easier to land large cargo ships on. • Mars has far more resources, it's awash with water and CO2 making fuel production easy, and metals are literally laying about on the surface. The moon is a desert of rocks and dust that only has water in polar craters that is likely mixed into rock percentages at absolute zero. • Mars is far easier to survive long periods on. The moon is a desert of dangerously razor sharp dust that alternates between two weeks of intense heat and two weeks of near absolute zero temperatures. Mars atmosphere is thin but it means it's temperature ranges are far less extreme, and it's surface soil has been eroded. It also has a lower radiation environment, but that's a minor concern. Most importability water and CO2 and metals are easy to access. • Returning people from Mars is much easier than the Moon because high volume in-situ fuel production on Mars is easy, while probably not going to be possible on the Moon for decades. Virtually all lunar research can be done tele-robotically since it's only 3 seconds away. That's impossible on Mars, where we've had a robot trying to dig a hole for over a year. Sending humans to Mars will vastly increase our scientific knowledge of Mars, they will explore more of Mars in a few weeks than rovers have in 50 years. The answer is send more robots to the moon, but send the astronauts to Mars.
- mastre_ 6y agoFascinating, thanks! I knew most of these points in some fashion, but wasn't tying them together in such a coherent view.