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> Something will happen in relation to lunar resources. Lunar what now? I mean, I thought the stuff over Taiwan was a little over the top, but... this is just

> Something will happen in relation to lunar resources. Lunar what now? I mean, I thought the stuff over Taiwan was a little over the top, but... this is just satire, right?

eloff 6y ago
Depends what your time horizon is. Over a long enough time period I fully agree with the OP. In the next twenty years, not likely.
- newacct583 6y ago
  You think over a long enough time period the moon will be made up of something other than rocks? It's rocks. There are no "resources". It's ejected mantle material just like we have here right under our feet, with the added disadvantage that there's no tectonics that would have had the effect of concentrating what trace materials were there. It's rocks. Someone who wants to imagine going to war with China over rocks on the moon is someone who wants to imagine going to war with China. That's not a serious (nor responsible) position.
  - eloff 6y ago
    The rocks under our feet are valuable in places and many wars have been fought over them. Why should the moon be any different? Additionally the density of the moon is lower than earth, so it will have higher concentrations of kinds of elements that may be rare here. Leading to mines that might be surprisingly valuable. More important may be the fact that these resources are at the bottom of a much smaller gravity well. On a long enough time period we'll be living on the moon in permanent colonies. You are unfortunately mistaken if you think that will all happen peacefully.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      The rare ores under our feet are there because billions of years of heating/cooling cycles, water flow, and cracking events have managed to concentrate like materials. A given iron compound, say, all melts at the same temperature and pressure. So when the rock reaches that condition the iron all leaches away to a crack, where it concentrates. Then the same thing happens 20ky later, etc... Eventually you get an ore vein. That does not happen on the moon. It's cold. The rocks are just rocks. And I'll say it again, it sounds like you're engaging in this ridiculous fantasy not because you genuinely think the moon is a treasure chest but because you privately think war with China sounds kinda cool. You know how you get dumb wars? That's how you get dumb wars.
      - stcredzero 6y ago
        That does not happen on the moon. It's cold. The rocks are just rocks. In the desert, a cup of water is a treasure. In space, even rocks are very useful as radiation shielding. And I'll say it again, it sounds like you're engaging in this ridiculous fantasy not because you genuinely think the moon is a treasure chest Lots of people have studied and thought about this. In relation to the environment, it is a treasure chest. It has the right materials to build the bulk of solar power satellites, much more economically than importing those materials from Earth. Again, with enough energy, even dumb rocks become ore. There is a lot more energy available in space. You know how you get dumb wars? That's how you get dumb wars. Here's a challenge: Name a dumb war that wasn't at least peripherally about the control of resources, especially energy. The recent ones have been at least peripherally about oil.
      - eloff 6y ago
        I've no interest in wars, and I rather doubt that it would be China and the USA fighting over the moon. They won't last long enough to see that. This will be hundreds, if not thousands of years from now. I don't think there will be no resources of value on the moon, but I'm not an expert in the field, so I won't die on that hill. Sadly, even if there was nothing of value there aside from the land itself, we'd probably still fight over it.
        stcredzero 6y ago
        This will be hundreds, if not thousands of years from now. It's going to happen sooner than you think. Humans are bad at exponential change. It will be under 100 years from now.
        eloff 6y ago
        We'll definitely be there in under a hundred years, just probably not in a huge way. I just would be surprised if we're fighting wars there before then. That said, humans are surprisingly belligerent, so maybe.
    - jordan_curve 6y ago
      Why would we live on the moon in permanent colonies outside of scientific research? There are still tons of uncolonized places on earth that are much more hospitable than the moon.
      - stcredzero 6y ago
        You don't need to live somewhere to colonize it.
      - eloff 6y ago
        There could be a great many reasons to do that. I'm not talking in the next twenty years here. But can you say there's no reason to do that in the next thousand years? Even just as a source of materials in a much smaller gravity well it could be instrumental to future human space industry and exploration.
    - doctor_eval 6y ago
      Not that I agree or disagree with you, but ISTM there are no literal feet on the moon for resources to be under, which removes much of the need for fighting. Why would a country go to war over the discovery of resources in one location when there is literally a whole moon remaining in which to find alternative sources for those resources? I’m not a geologist but it just seems unlikely to me that the moons natural resources will be materially constrained in the next few hundred years.
      - stcredzero 6y ago
        there are no literal feet on the moon for resources to be under, which removes much of the need for fighting. By the time we have large scale industry on the moon, is this going to be the case? Probably not. Also, not all lunar resources are distributed evenly. Maybe you're right, which would actually be a very good thing for the human race.
      - eloff 6y ago
        The moon is a lot smaller than earth for one. I seem to recall it's comparable to the size of the USA, someone correct me if that's a bad memory. But given enough time, would it not be likely? The present lack of people there has no predictive value about the far future.
        sjruckle 6y ago
        It's somewhat larger. https://xkcd.com/1389/ https://xkcd.com/1389/
        doctor_eval 6y ago
        I doubt that we have extracted even 1% of the valuable, accessible non fossil resources of Earth yet, and while I know that the more valuable materials are also harder to extract, the moon is currently 100% unutilised, so the idea of near term war for resources on the moon seems like an extrapolation too far for me. That’s not to say that there is no chance of war on the moon, given enough time as you say, but “enough time” IMO is centuries, at which timescale any kind of prediction is really just a guess.
  - stcredzero 6y ago
    There are no "resources". Aluminum. Silicon. Titanium. Iron. Water. (Hence hydrogen and oxygen.) Many of the other elements we need are available in the asteroid belt, and it's far less cost in energy to go there from the Moon than it takes to get off of the Earth. It's ejected mantle material just like we have here right under our feet, with the added disadvantage that there's no tectonics that would have had the effect of concentrating what trace materials were there. It's rocks. You're judging this by terrestrial standards. Given enough energy, rocks are still resources. Remember: the energy potentially available to a space faring civilization is literally orders of magnitude greater than that available to an Earth bound one. Someone who wants to imagine going to war with China over rocks on the moon is someone who wants to imagine going to war with China. I'd rather nothing like that ever happened. My wife is Chinese, for heaven's sake. However, the biggest wars are fought over energy resources. The control of lunar resources will be key in who gets to exploit vast amounts of solar energy at some point. Just as wars are now fought over oil, at some point, wars will be fought over who gets to build power satellites.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      > You're judging this by terrestrial standards. That's right! Because we have plenty of rocks right here on earth!
      - stcredzero 6y ago
        That's right! Because we have plenty of rocks right here on earth! Now, work out the economics of using Earth rocks to build power satellites. Compare that to the economics of using material from the Moon. The difference is orders of magnitude. Will that take a lot of energy? Yes, but there too, the difference is orders of magnitude.
    - doctor_eval 6y ago
      I share your hope that there will be no war, and most of your points about exploration, but am less pessimistic. Wars are fought over oil on earth because it is a limited, nonrenewable resource. Solar energy is not practically limited, is already cheaper than oil, and can be harvested directly on earth. Perhaps war will be fought for access to the asteroid belt (similar to the US’ strategic position in the Middle East regarding access to oil), but if current trends continue, I doubt - and hope - that we will never go to war again over energy itself.
stcredzero 6y ago
I mean, I thought the stuff over Taiwan was a little over the top, but. Did you know that the US just paid approaching 6 billion dollars to buy Italian warships? Basically, the US Navy feels like it's going to need blue water forces, while it has instead been concentrating on littoral craft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA4ajpCtpQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA4ajpCtpQ This does have something to do with China. China wants to have a dominant blue water Navy and become a world power. They can't viably do this without Taiwan. Considering how big China is economically, and how it's growing, it may be just a matter of time before mounting an invasion goes from uncertain and dicey, to something they can easily afford. this is just satire, right? No. The biggest wars of the 20th century had a lot to do with control over energy resources. Whoever can operate industrial infrastructure on the moon will be able to build space solar power. At large enough scales, this basically is fusion power. Whoever controls this energy can eventually dwarf the energy resources available on Earth by multiple orders of magnitude. At long enough time scales, this will blow away even turning the Sahara into one big solar farm, even with regards to incremental cost. It may be a long ways out, but it's inevitable if we don't first bomb ourselves back to being earthbound. Issac Arthur: The Moon Industrial Complex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y47MMNqKGxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y47MMNqKGxE It takes a lot more energy resources to exploit many space resources. However, note that this is subject to exponential growth. The more energy one can produce in space, the more resources can be converted to generate more energy to convert more resources. Planners of major powers may be able to forsee this exponential growth, and go to war over its potential.
- Recurecur 6y ago
  Nice writeup! I think Taiwan will remain free for at least a few years, as China would pay a very heavy cost for not too much gain invading Taiwan in the near future. We'll see if Taiwan goes nuclear in the interim. The Hong Kong experience might be pushing things in that direction. I completely agree about space being a viable new frontier. People don't seem to get that with effectively unlimited energy, habitats throughout the Solar System and even out to the Oort cloud can be arbitrarily luxurious and enjoyable. Advances in spacecraft design and propulsion will only accelerate things... heh

> Something will happen in relation to lunar resources. Lunar what now? I mean, I thought the stuff over Taiwan was a little over the top, but... this is just satire, right?

eloff 6y ago

Depends what your time horizon is. Over a long enough time period I fully agree with the OP. In the next twenty years, not likely.

newacct583 6y ago
You think over a long enough time period the moon will be made up of something other than rocks? It's rocks. There are no "resources". It's ejected mantle material just like we have here right under our feet, with the added disadvantage that there's no tectonics that would have had the effect of concentrating what trace materials were there. It's rocks. Someone who wants to imagine going to war with China over rocks on the moon is someone who wants to imagine going to war with China. That's not a serious (nor responsible) position.
- eloff 6y ago
  The rocks under our feet are valuable in places and many wars have been fought over them. Why should the moon be any different? Additionally the density of the moon is lower than earth, so it will have higher concentrations of kinds of elements that may be rare here. Leading to mines that might be surprisingly valuable. More important may be the fact that these resources are at the bottom of a much smaller gravity well. On a long enough time period we'll be living on the moon in permanent colonies. You are unfortunately mistaken if you think that will all happen peacefully.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    The rare ores under our feet are there because billions of years of heating/cooling cycles, water flow, and cracking events have managed to concentrate like materials. A given iron compound, say, all melts at the same temperature and pressure. So when the rock reaches that condition the iron all leaches away to a crack, where it concentrates. Then the same thing happens 20ky later, etc... Eventually you get an ore vein. That does not happen on the moon. It's cold. The rocks are just rocks. And I'll say it again, it sounds like you're engaging in this ridiculous fantasy not because you genuinely think the moon is a treasure chest but because you privately think war with China sounds kinda cool. You know how you get dumb wars? That's how you get dumb wars.
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      That does not happen on the moon. It's cold. The rocks are just rocks. In the desert, a cup of water is a treasure. In space, even rocks are very useful as radiation shielding. And I'll say it again, it sounds like you're engaging in this ridiculous fantasy not because you genuinely think the moon is a treasure chest Lots of people have studied and thought about this. In relation to the environment, it is a treasure chest. It has the right materials to build the bulk of solar power satellites, much more economically than importing those materials from Earth. Again, with enough energy, even dumb rocks become ore. There is a lot more energy available in space. You know how you get dumb wars? That's how you get dumb wars. Here's a challenge: Name a dumb war that wasn't at least peripherally about the control of resources, especially energy. The recent ones have been at least peripherally about oil.
    - eloff 6y ago
      I've no interest in wars, and I rather doubt that it would be China and the USA fighting over the moon. They won't last long enough to see that. This will be hundreds, if not thousands of years from now. I don't think there will be no resources of value on the moon, but I'm not an expert in the field, so I won't die on that hill. Sadly, even if there was nothing of value there aside from the land itself, we'd probably still fight over it.
      - stcredzero 6y ago
        This will be hundreds, if not thousands of years from now. It's going to happen sooner than you think. Humans are bad at exponential change. It will be under 100 years from now.
        eloff 6y ago
        We'll definitely be there in under a hundred years, just probably not in a huge way. I just would be surprised if we're fighting wars there before then. That said, humans are surprisingly belligerent, so maybe.
  - jordan_curve 6y ago
    Why would we live on the moon in permanent colonies outside of scientific research? There are still tons of uncolonized places on earth that are much more hospitable than the moon.
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      You don't need to live somewhere to colonize it.
    - eloff 6y ago
      There could be a great many reasons to do that. I'm not talking in the next twenty years here. But can you say there's no reason to do that in the next thousand years? Even just as a source of materials in a much smaller gravity well it could be instrumental to future human space industry and exploration.
  - doctor_eval 6y ago
    Not that I agree or disagree with you, but ISTM there are no literal feet on the moon for resources to be under, which removes much of the need for fighting. Why would a country go to war over the discovery of resources in one location when there is literally a whole moon remaining in which to find alternative sources for those resources? I’m not a geologist but it just seems unlikely to me that the moons natural resources will be materially constrained in the next few hundred years.
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      there are no literal feet on the moon for resources to be under, which removes much of the need for fighting. By the time we have large scale industry on the moon, is this going to be the case? Probably not. Also, not all lunar resources are distributed evenly. Maybe you're right, which would actually be a very good thing for the human race.
    - eloff 6y ago
      The moon is a lot smaller than earth for one. I seem to recall it's comparable to the size of the USA, someone correct me if that's a bad memory. But given enough time, would it not be likely? The present lack of people there has no predictive value about the far future.
      - sjruckle 6y ago
        It's somewhat larger. https://xkcd.com/1389/ https://xkcd.com/1389/
      - doctor_eval 6y ago
        I doubt that we have extracted even 1% of the valuable, accessible non fossil resources of Earth yet, and while I know that the more valuable materials are also harder to extract, the moon is currently 100% unutilised, so the idea of near term war for resources on the moon seems like an extrapolation too far for me. That’s not to say that there is no chance of war on the moon, given enough time as you say, but “enough time” IMO is centuries, at which timescale any kind of prediction is really just a guess.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  There are no "resources". Aluminum. Silicon. Titanium. Iron. Water. (Hence hydrogen and oxygen.) Many of the other elements we need are available in the asteroid belt, and it's far less cost in energy to go there from the Moon than it takes to get off of the Earth. It's ejected mantle material just like we have here right under our feet, with the added disadvantage that there's no tectonics that would have had the effect of concentrating what trace materials were there. It's rocks. You're judging this by terrestrial standards. Given enough energy, rocks are still resources. Remember: the energy potentially available to a space faring civilization is literally orders of magnitude greater than that available to an Earth bound one. Someone who wants to imagine going to war with China over rocks on the moon is someone who wants to imagine going to war with China. I'd rather nothing like that ever happened. My wife is Chinese, for heaven's sake. However, the biggest wars are fought over energy resources. The control of lunar resources will be key in who gets to exploit vast amounts of solar energy at some point. Just as wars are now fought over oil, at some point, wars will be fought over who gets to build power satellites.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    > You're judging this by terrestrial standards. That's right! Because we have plenty of rocks right here on earth!
    - stcredzero 6y ago
      That's right! Because we have plenty of rocks right here on earth! Now, work out the economics of using Earth rocks to build power satellites. Compare that to the economics of using material from the Moon. The difference is orders of magnitude. Will that take a lot of energy? Yes, but there too, the difference is orders of magnitude.
  - doctor_eval 6y ago
    I share your hope that there will be no war, and most of your points about exploration, but am less pessimistic. Wars are fought over oil on earth because it is a limited, nonrenewable resource. Solar energy is not practically limited, is already cheaper than oil, and can be harvested directly on earth. Perhaps war will be fought for access to the asteroid belt (similar to the US’ strategic position in the Middle East regarding access to oil), but if current trends continue, I doubt - and hope - that we will never go to war again over energy itself.

stcredzero 6y ago

I mean, I thought the stuff over Taiwan was a little over the top, but. Did you know that the US just paid approaching 6 billion dollars to buy Italian warships? Basically, the US Navy feels like it's going to need blue water forces, while it has instead been concentrating on littoral craft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA4ajpCtpQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buA4ajpCtpQ This does have something to do with China. China wants to have a dominant blue water Navy and become a world power. They can't viably do this without Taiwan. Considering how big China is economically, and how it's growing, it may be just a matter of time before mounting an invasion goes from uncertain and dicey, to something they can easily afford. this is just satire, right? No. The biggest wars of the 20th century had a lot to do with control over energy resources. Whoever can operate industrial infrastructure on the moon will be able to build space solar power. At large enough scales, this basically is fusion power. Whoever controls this energy can eventually dwarf the energy resources available on Earth by multiple orders of magnitude. At long enough time scales, this will blow away even turning the Sahara into one big solar farm, even with regards to incremental cost. It may be a long ways out, but it's inevitable if we don't first bomb ourselves back to being earthbound. Issac Arthur: The Moon Industrial Complex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y47MMNqKGxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y47MMNqKGxE It takes a lot more energy resources to exploit many space resources. However, note that this is subject to exponential growth. The more energy one can produce in space, the more resources can be converted to generate more energy to convert more resources. Planners of major powers may be able to forsee this exponential growth, and go to war over its potential.

Recurecur 6y ago
Nice writeup! I think Taiwan will remain free for at least a few years, as China would pay a very heavy cost for not too much gain invading Taiwan in the near future. We'll see if Taiwan goes nuclear in the interim. The Hong Kong experience might be pushing things in that direction. I completely agree about space being a viable new frontier. People don't seem to get that with effectively unlimited energy, habitats throughout the Solar System and even out to the Oort cloud can be arbitrarily luxurious and enjoyable. Advances in spacecraft design and propulsion will only accelerate things... heh