A Moon Base really does make sense

[r0beph]

Back to the original thought on this post - I couldn't resist relating something I read off ESPN.com Gregg Easterbrook, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback, is actually an intelligent author and lecturer - he regularly sprinkles his hilarious NFL column with other thoughts - here's his thoughts on the proposed moon space station. I guess he also gave an interview on NPR talking about the same thing.

"Although someday men and women will live on other worlds, until there is a propulsion breakthrough, it is folly for NASA to contemplate a super-expensive base on the moon, especially without a scientific rationale. Using current rocket technology, it costs about $25,000 to place a pound of cargo on the lunar surface. That means a moon-base crewmember would consume about $1 million per day worth of water, food and air, while the overall moon-base project might cost $200 billion or $300 billion. When 45 million Americans lack health care insurance, it is absurdity squared to contemplate taxing that group to spend $1 million per day per astronaut just for supplies on the moon -- especially when the main thing the crew of a moon base would do is monitor instruments, which could be accomplished from an office building in Scottsdale, Ariz."

Just a thought.

Definitely. The problem of propulsion is a big one, which is why there is such a money sink in techs like space elevators and such they're trying to come up with. The one saving grace would be some tech that could refurbish air/water and such. Since O2 is converted by people into CO2, some sort of electrolysis of the CO2 into it's component Oxygen2 and Carbon would be intriguing. The amount of energy available to the moon is "limitless" since there is little standing between collectors and the sun. The only problem I'd see is what to do with all that carbon. I'd not like to think of it as a waste product, but it could somehow be recycled and useful. Water recycling isn't so tough, again just break it down into Hydrogen and oxygen, burn it for heat or something recoup the water, it has the lovely effect of spitting out pure water and the contaminants removed via whatever process you split the molecules up with. I mean something along these lines would be the only alternative. In a captive environment with only so many resources one should cease thinking in terms of water, oxygen, etc, and think more about what atoms you got laying around and how you can convert them into whatever it is you need at the time.

 

[SavageDreamer]

If it doesn't hit us sounds like a prime chance to put an array of sensors on a roaming astronomical body that we don't have to use resources to plan and adjust its orbit.

Lol if it hits doesn't matter anyways except to the survivors now does it. Cause we know that there is too much retarded political rangling and to many people who think that space is a waste of money to actually get anything done. Heck that doesn't even take in account the idiots who wouldn't believe it till the rock gave them a splitting headache because they think that nothing can happen to us.

 

[NobodySpecial]

Ah. I hadn't heard about that one. Or maybe I did; there are so many "end of the world" scenarios out there that they all get jumbled in my head sometimes.

Death is a certainty, when it will arrive is an uncertainty, the problem is that we think we have time. Cherish the moment and make it meaningful.