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Military uses of the moon are zero. Moon's distance from earth: 394,000km (238,000 miles); too far for reconnaissance, space-to-earth weapons or even anti-sate

• hga 12y ago
  As the article points out, it could be a source of materials for any of the above. You might also find The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to be interesting....
  • iwwr 12y ago
    As a source of materials it's also not very good. Most of the stuff is a finely mixed slag with hard-to-recover materials. All this from the bottom of a deep gravity well, deeper than that of Mars when we account for no atmosphere to slow you down. Asteroids are much better comparatively since you can have your pick at those that have concentrated materials of the sort you're looking for.
    • hga 12y ago
      We'll have to do a fair amount more exploration and/or be lucky before asteroids can be a source, but, yeah, your points are well taken. Then again, the moon is there, and [ pretty much every other point I'd make is addressed by my novel reference ^_^, modulo maybe the moon's gravity will be relatively good for humans. Of course, then Mars' would be better. ]
    • lazaroclapp 12y ago
      Seems like a significant source of aneutronic fusion fuel, which gives you the energy generation (or bang) of conventional fusion but lets you isolate most of the radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraterrestrial_abundance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraterrestrial_abun...
  • r00fus 12y ago
    Someone told me that Heinlein's book is recommended (or required, can't remember) reading in US military academies (specifically the Marines).
    • ryanx435 12y ago
      his book, starship troopers, is on the commandant of the Marine Corps professional reading list. it is required reading in some commands, but not corps wide.
  • rrggrr 12y ago
    The article is deprecated and here is why: Not only are we at the beginning of a manufacturing revolution reducing the amount 'rare' materials needed for many applications, we're also now able to recycle materials down to single digit percentages in many cases. The moon's resources are not needed, and even more so in the present deflationary environment where manufacturing inputs are decreasing in cost dramatically. There are arguments for developing lunar transit capabilities, but economics for military or any other application are not among them.
    • hga 12y ago
      If you own "space", you also own the Earth. That's worth something, even if you're not using the moon but more favorable sources of mass. And perhaps I've read too much David Drake, but I'd like to see what we could do if we had lots of relatively cheap iridium and other rare stuff which we hope to be able to mine and refine out there. We don't have hardly enough of it down here to recycle into e.g. armor.
    • sergiosgc 12y ago
      The question is not so much availability of materials as it is the availability of materials out of Earth's gravity well. If you are able to extract materials and build stuff on the moon, launching them into space is then subject to a much nicer "rocket equation". It's not a question of price, either. Building and launching from the moon enables new possibilities.