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The Moon is kind of glossed over but it’s not as bad as it sounds. There are peaks of (near) eternal light at the poles. Put up a tower there with solar collec

by api 2y ago

The Moon is kind of glossed over but it’s not as bad as it sounds. There are peaks of (near) eternal light at the poles. Put up a tower there with solar collectors and you have power. Nuclear power works too and there is probably fissile material on the Moon if it can be found. It’s only a few days away, meaning it’s close enough for people to come and go and supplies to be sent in an emergency. It’s also close enough for tourism while Mars is definitely not barring fusion rockets or something. Magnetic or gun launch from the Lunar surface could export minerals from the Moon to Earth, another possible industry that could at least offset the cost. There are some compelling scientific and industrial possibilities. For science the Moon would make an amazing place to build massive telescopes. The low gravity would make huge structures easier to build too. Spacecraft could be built on the Moon and launched into space easily, making it an ideal place to construct really huge craft that would probably be needed for any serious forays elsewhere. Nuclear powered launch from the Moon is fine too unlike Earth where this would be an environmental disaster. The environment on the Moon is a bit harsher than Mars but not as much as it first appears. There is water and probably lots of minerals. A vacuum isn’t that much worse than the thin wispy Martian air. The dust may be more abrasive but otherwise is probably not much worse. Edit: peaks of eternal light: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light

piloto_ciego 2y ago
Also, it’s just a few days away from earth too.
akira2501 2y ago
> Nuclear power works too Moonquakes happen too.
- defrost 2y ago
  tremors are typically weaker than the tremors that occur on the Earth, though they do tend to last longer. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-are-moonquakes-the-causes-and-different-types https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-are-moonq... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022JE007704 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022... https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experiment/display.action?id=1972-096C-06 https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experiment/display.action?id... Moonquakes don't seem to be showstopping events, more something that can be worked around by avoiding faults and steep slopes that might collapse.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    It's complicated enough that I don't think you could have something fully automated unless it's an RTG. It would all probably end like Antarctica, we had one reactor down there, but the cost of sending people there just to run it and the infeasibility of any repairs of upgrades ended the entire effort after one generation.
    - defrost 2y ago
      Maintenance is a much better quibble, at least in my opinion. Real world non spherical cow technology has a pyramid of support issues that many tend to forget about.
      - api 2y ago
        That's the biggest reason I prefer the Moon to Mars for anything in the next 25-50 years at least. The Moon is close enough to Earth to get supplies quickly in a crunch. Mars is not. It's going to take a long time for anything off-world to be industrially self-sufficient because as you point out supply chains are longer and more complex than people realize.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > It would all probably end like Antarctica, we had one reactor down there, but the cost of sending people there just to run it and the infeasibility of any repairs of upgrades ended the entire effort after one generation. The decision to close McMurdo Station's "Nukey Poo" nuclear power station in 1972 wasn't just due to cost of running it, it was also due to environmental concerns. On the Moon, those environmental concerns don't exist – there is no living environment to be harmed. Also, Nukey Poo was 1960s technology. State-of-the art nuclear reactors are more reliable and less maintenance-intensive than their 1960s forebears. So just because Nukey Poo required an on-site crew of 25 people, it doesn't necessarily follow a lunar reactor would. The reactor could be remotely monitored and controlled from Earth, and some maintenance tasks could likely be performed by robots–not possible in Nukey Poo's day. There would still likely be some maintenance tasks that would require humans on-site, but that might require significantly less than 25 people. For improved safety, a lunar reactor could be situated several kilometres away from the nearest human settlement, and left unattended most of the time. Humans (travelling in pressurised lunar rovers) could visit on those occasions when in-person maintenance was necesary. Another factor which added to the cost of Nukey Poo – under the Antarctic Treaty, it is prohibited to dispose of nuclear waste in Antarctica, so the whole site had to be disassembled and cleaned-up and all waste shipped back to the US via New Zealand, at great expense. By contrast, a disused lunar reactor could likely just be abandoned in-place. https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-past-with-nukey-poo-99934 https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-...
- mr_toad 2y ago
  The risks seem lower on the Moon. No water table to melt down into, and there’s no atmosphere to pollute or to spread fallout.
- api 2y ago
  Moonquakes are smaller than Earth and don't seem common. This is very low on the list of risks. A meltdown on the Moon wouldn't be nearly as bad as Earth. The thing that makes it bad here is all the water, wind, etc. and the thick atmosphere that spreads nasty radioactive material everywhere. On the Moon you would end up with one site that was radioactive AF but it wouldn't go everywhere unless it exploded and a reactor prone to that would be stupid. Different reactor designs would be much easier on the Moon too like liquid sodium fast reactors. Liquid sodium is problematic on Earth because it loves to react with water and oxygen but on the Moon if it were exposed it would just sit there. Of course the whole surface environment is bathed in radiation because it's sitting underneath an unshielded open fusion reactor called the Sun. This also makes radiation incidents less of a concern. It doesn't change all that much except for right next to the thing. Edit: BTW I do think if solar towers at peaks of eternal light work that's probably easier than a nuclear reactor at least in the short-medium term and maybe forever.

by api 2y ago

piloto_ciego 2y ago

Also, it’s just a few days away from earth too.

akira2501 2y ago

> Nuclear power works too Moonquakes happen too.

defrost 2y ago
tremors are typically weaker than the tremors that occur on the Earth, though they do tend to last longer. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-are-moonquakes-the-causes-and-different-types https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-are-moonq... https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022JE007704 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022... https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experiment/display.action?id=1972-096C-06 https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experiment/display.action?id... Moonquakes don't seem to be showstopping events, more something that can be worked around by avoiding faults and steep slopes that might collapse.
- akira2501 2y ago
  It's complicated enough that I don't think you could have something fully automated unless it's an RTG. It would all probably end like Antarctica, we had one reactor down there, but the cost of sending people there just to run it and the infeasibility of any repairs of upgrades ended the entire effort after one generation.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Maintenance is a much better quibble, at least in my opinion. Real world non spherical cow technology has a pyramid of support issues that many tend to forget about.
    - api 2y ago
      That's the biggest reason I prefer the Moon to Mars for anything in the next 25-50 years at least. The Moon is close enough to Earth to get supplies quickly in a crunch. Mars is not. It's going to take a long time for anything off-world to be industrially self-sufficient because as you point out supply chains are longer and more complex than people realize.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > It would all probably end like Antarctica, we had one reactor down there, but the cost of sending people there just to run it and the infeasibility of any repairs of upgrades ended the entire effort after one generation. The decision to close McMurdo Station's "Nukey Poo" nuclear power station in 1972 wasn't just due to cost of running it, it was also due to environmental concerns. On the Moon, those environmental concerns don't exist – there is no living environment to be harmed. Also, Nukey Poo was 1960s technology. State-of-the art nuclear reactors are more reliable and less maintenance-intensive than their 1960s forebears. So just because Nukey Poo required an on-site crew of 25 people, it doesn't necessarily follow a lunar reactor would. The reactor could be remotely monitored and controlled from Earth, and some maintenance tasks could likely be performed by robots–not possible in Nukey Poo's day. There would still likely be some maintenance tasks that would require humans on-site, but that might require significantly less than 25 people. For improved safety, a lunar reactor could be situated several kilometres away from the nearest human settlement, and left unattended most of the time. Humans (travelling in pressurised lunar rovers) could visit on those occasions when in-person maintenance was necesary. Another factor which added to the cost of Nukey Poo – under the Antarctic Treaty, it is prohibited to dispose of nuclear waste in Antarctica, so the whole site had to be disassembled and cleaned-up and all waste shipped back to the US via New Zealand, at great expense. By contrast, a disused lunar reactor could likely just be abandoned in-place. https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-past-with-nukey-poo-99934 https://theconversation.com/remembering-antarcticas-nuclear-...
mr_toad 2y ago
The risks seem lower on the Moon. No water table to melt down into, and there’s no atmosphere to pollute or to spread fallout.
api 2y ago
Moonquakes are smaller than Earth and don't seem common. This is very low on the list of risks. A meltdown on the Moon wouldn't be nearly as bad as Earth. The thing that makes it bad here is all the water, wind, etc. and the thick atmosphere that spreads nasty radioactive material everywhere. On the Moon you would end up with one site that was radioactive AF but it wouldn't go everywhere unless it exploded and a reactor prone to that would be stupid. Different reactor designs would be much easier on the Moon too like liquid sodium fast reactors. Liquid sodium is problematic on Earth because it loves to react with water and oxygen but on the Moon if it were exposed it would just sit there. Of course the whole surface environment is bathed in radiation because it's sitting underneath an unshielded open fusion reactor called the Sun. This also makes radiation incidents less of a concern. It doesn't change all that much except for right next to the thing. Edit: BTW I do think if solar towers at peaks of eternal light work that's probably easier than a nuclear reactor at least in the short-medium term and maybe forever.