What's the point of a moon settlement?

Question

I read on today's paper that by 2024 there will be a moon settlement, at a cost of many billions. Why would that be any good?

Answer 1

Ideally, it could serve to provide new means of improving life on Earth, while expanding human presence and knowledge.
Realistically, it would be a politcal and military football, resulting in our mucking up another world.

Answer 2

The thing about scientific accomplishments like a moon settlement is that they may serve absolutely no good purpose currently, but may lead to future developments that do have a purpose and serve mankind.

It is called progress, and it is the reason that we have what we have. If you think about it, for all of recorded history science has been progressing, and part of this progression has been just doing things that have never been done before, just to see what you find out. What if back in whatever B.C., people had decided that there was no use for the wheel. Certainly, at the time, the wheel didn't serve much purpose, and people could certainly walk around without it. But it was a watershed that lead to millions of other innovations.

As for the population arguement someone raised, that is just silly science fiction for now. The earth is 2/3 water. We will certainly colonize or even reclaim land from the ocean long before we ever need to live on the moon, and if it has taken us all of history to reach this population, then we have quite a while left if we can colonize the oceans. That is much more practical than the moon. Also, the population of the world is actually GOING DOWN, mostly due to the low birth rates in China and high mortality rates in subsaharian Africa. The stat that the population conspirists usually point to is that the birth RATE is going up, but that jsut means that we are getting closer to equalibrium, and not passing it quite yet. Population growth is on the rise in the US and most other western European countries, but you have to remember that although we currently RULE the world, we are FAR from the majority!!

Answer 3

It's called technology. If you don't understand it, it would probably not affect you at all. Having a moon base has many advantages to science. Because there is no atmosphere there, it would be a perfect spot for an observatory. On the moon, the stars in the sky move much slower, so there would be better opportunities to photograph and study other planets and stars from there. There may also be resources there that are very rare here on earth. Being that you are from the UK, I can see why you wouldn't be able to see the value in such an endeavor.

Answer 4

Tossup between the Moon and Mars. The Moon is super close to so this is the finest different international to get to, and it will have the final standard temperature. Minuses are long days which ability long warm daylight hours and long chilly night sessions, low gravity, and available detrimental organic components. Mars has a classic day-night cycle which ability much less temperature fluctuations, extra suitable gravity, and extra suitable components, even though if this is further away and chillier on standard. something interior the outer image voltaic device is basically too a approaches away. Saturn's seventeen cases farther from Earth than Mars at closest attitude. basically GETTING a individual to Titan may well be a extra good activity than setting up a Mars colony.

Answer 5

I wrote on this when it was first announced a couple of years ago. Check out the link with a boondocks comic.

Bottom line this project is a blank check to republican donors in the form of military contracts for Lockheed & Haliburton and the like. How do you put a price on a moon base that has never been done before?

There is nothing vaulable on the moon, and many scientists including NASA admit the best space science is robotic. The only science we gain from manned flights is on their effect on the human body.

Answer 6

I can think of a few pros and cons.

One pro is because we are doomed here on Earth with the way we treat the environment and need a place to go for continued survival?

Overall I think it just makes people happy and we need to do things like this to satisfy our curiousity (also a good tactic to help in the time of elections?)

On the negative side, it is much too expensive and we have enough problems on earth that should first be addressed like anything to do with protecting the environment. I tend to feel we should spend this money more appropriately. The moon can wait!

Answer 7

because the earth is dying and we need to see if we can move people off of here and if it's stable enough on the moon for us to live comfortably. if not we're stuck on this earth as the sun moves closer and global warming get worse, unreleatedly, and as we slowly kill our resources. we can't keep doing this. there's only so much, soon it'll be gone.

Answer 8

Stephen Hawking has said that in order to survive, Humanity MUST expand out to space. As a one-planet species our chances of surviving in the long term are very, very dim.

From our earliest Human ancestors who migrated from central Africa, we have always explored and searched out new places to live and settle until we came to inhabit the entire planet. Should we declare the end of exploration? No, in effect, this is just the beginning. From here on, we will begin to explore and settle the planets of the Solar system. Why? Because Space means Survival, Prosperity and Adventure. It offers unlimited living space for our growing population, it offers unlimited material resources (iron, aluminum, oxigen, water, even gold and platinum); space offers unlimited amounts of free and non-poluting energy; and it offers new experiences of adventure and exploration so that we, as a species can continue to be the Explorers we have always been. A closed, completely filled up Earth with no new frontiers would eventually come to feel like a prison. The Human spirit needs new frontiers to remain fully Human, fully alive and vibrant.

It is not really a question of if we are going to build colonies on other planets, it's a question of when. And since our very survival is at stake, I say that the sooner we begin, the better.

The logical place to start learning how to live in Space is the Moon. It will be a learning ground where we evolve our Space technology; it will be our beach head from where we will launch other humans into the rest of the Solar system : to Mars, to the asteroids, to colossal free space colonies built by us that will house tens of thousands of people and will be completely self sufficient. All of this will come to pass and it will all start with the first permanent off-palent colony - on the Moon.

There are no technological barriers to building a colony on the Moon. From an engineering and technological point of view, we know how to do it. We could begin today!

So, the fact that NASA has announced it will establish a permanent settlement on the Moon, is a very good thing indeed. It is the beginning of our transition into a Space Faring Civilization. It is the beginning of our doing something whih is ciritical to our survical as a species. My only disapointment is that we (NASA and all of us) are not ambitious enough. We should be planning for an actual city on the moon by 2025. NASA should have announced that they would land astronauts and robots on the Moon in 2015 and build the first small base by 2018. That first small base should be the "construction trailer" from which they manage the construction of the first Lunar City which would be a very large structure, designed to house over 300 people. Then it should open it up so that anyone could go to the Moon. There would be tourists traveling to the Moon on vacation. There will be scientists, and researchers and people mining the Moon, and other people testing out designs for a new Mars colony , exploring, and so on.... A large scale permanent Lunar City would have a lot of different and very intersting activities going on [For a detailed description of a large Moon City at the Lunar South pole please visit www.LunarExplorer.com and search "Malapert"].

The Moon is an amzing place to visit. Because it has only 1/6 of Earth's gravity, it means that you can jump six times higher than you can on Earth. It means that if you weigh 120 pounds on Earth, on the Moon you only weigh 20 pounds. It means you can jump off a 4 or 5 story building and land safely. It means you can strap on a pair of plastic wings to your arms and fly around like a bird - that is ubelivable but it is actually true. It means that if you were watching a waterfall on the Moon it woudl fall in slow motion, at 1/6th the speed that it falls on Earth. You would absolutely love to visit the Moon - it's an AMAZING place to be.

So, what about all the money that it will cost? With all of the problems going on in the World, shouldn't we be spending that money to solve those problems first?
The answer is: yes, we should. But, spending the money to learn how to live in space is the BEST WAY to solve our problems here on Earth. Even we could solve the Earth's problems without ever going to space, in the long run we would still be anhialated by a giant asteroid impact, or devastated by a super volcano, or maybe wiped out by some new deadly disease. But we cannot solve all the Earth's problems if we remain stuck on the surface of this tiny planet. We are running out of stuff: we are running out of energy (oil, gas and coal), we are running out of resources like platinum and copper which are critical to our energy infrastructure (particularly if we want to transition into a hydrogen economy); and we are even running out of fresh water! The Earth has limited resources. Space has unlimited resources and energy.
We could build a large Solar Power Satellite, for example, that would orbit the Earth collecting free, clean, soalr energy and transmit that energy down to the ground. This way we could keep our lights on, our TV's, refrigerators and computers running, and our air conditioning and pool filters working without creating any polution or adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Imagine that: free, unlimited, and almost 100% clean energy. Would that help to solve some of the Earth's problems ? Of course it would !

And the final point is that the money NASA is spending on this very important mission is a mere pittance; it is almost NOTHING. It amounts to about 0.7% of the the governement's budget. For something that is so critical to our future, the governement is being very irresponsible by not spending nearly enough to make sure we get to the Moon much faster and with much more ambitious plans.

Answer 9

It's good because then the Muslims will say "Hey! Get off my god!" And Us Americans will have a good time. It's true. Allah is the moon God. (Chick.com)

Answer 10

Well, considering how fast our population is growing, we'll probably need to expand eventually - we need to start working out the kinks.