The news is full of it, excitement seems high, and I really don’t get it. I’m not against space-related research, but why suddenly the moon? And why send people there? Can someone fill me in on what’s to be gained or why one might be excited about it?
Allow me to use the linked article for my questions.
There have been three primary drivers of renewed interest in the Moon. The first was the discovery and confirmation in the 1990s and early 2000s that water ice is likely to exist at the lunar poles in permanently shadowed craters. The presence of abundant water, providing oxygen and hydrogen resources, has given space agencies a new reason to explore the poles.
Yea but so what? Hydrogen is literally the most common thing in the universe, no fucking way there is also some on the moon 🤯. Then what’s so spectacular about moon ice, water, or even oxygen? And why does it need people to explore it?
A second factor has been the rise of China’s space program, which has sent a series of ambitious robotic missions to the Moon that have both landed on the far side and returned samples from the lunar surface. China has made no secret of its interest in sending astronauts to the Moon, leading to competing efforts between NASA’s Artemis Program and China’s lunar station goals.
Again why? Is this some repetition of the Cold War Soviet-US competition?
Finally, there has been some interest from private companies in the commercial development of the lunar surface, both to exploit resources there but also for other purposes. This has stimulated investment in private companies to provide transportation to the lunar surface, including ispace, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Firefly.
Exploiting resources has to be a joke, right? Do they want to sell us the newly found moon water? The only point I get is the tourism aspect. Because, of course, I always encourage billionaires to pursue dangerous hobbies 😊
The moon is a great launching point. And the water (ice) could be converted to fuel for rockets.
Basically with a permanent moon base we could send much bigger payloads, could refuel rockets before sending them out further into the solar system, could set up observatories that wouldn’t be affected by the atmosphere, could collect solar energy and send it back to earth via microwaves. Not to mention all the geological science, spelunking, and moon golf we could be doing.
There’s all kinds of things we could do.
To further clarify, one of the big reasons we don’t do much in space is because it’s really expensive to get stuff up there, even with the reduced costs from reusable rockets. After a certain point it’s cheaper to make a base on the moon, build stuff there and launch it to do whatever you wanted to do than it is to do it here and launch it into space. That it would also reduce the impact on the environment at some point is also a plus.
Of course, all of that requires the resources be available on the moon. We already know the moons composition is similar to earth’s, but we weren’t sure about water. Now that we know water is there, we have everything we need to have lunar industry.
I wonder how much stuff we need to deposit on the surface to start fucking with the orbit and create yet another global disaster.
We could also, like, ya know, try using all this magic technology to fix Earth?
All this space hype adds up to is humans looking to run away from their own problems. Run where though? To a dead rock?
If we can’t keep the living rock running and thriving, we sure can’t make a dead rock live. Ever tried to plant grass or an apple seed on the moon?..
Progress in one field often results in progress elsewhere, too. Apart from that, people working on projects on the moon would probably do the same work here, just under less good circumstances. It really is not a question of “throw enough money/personnel at the problems”. What needs to be done on earth is very different from what’s going on up there.
A lot of technology that people now rely on everyday has roots in NASA, take a look at some of the NASA spinoff technologies
These are real ways that NASA technology is helping earth now.
Remember that the core of space exploration involves keeping people alive. Basically everything NASA does has applications for people here on earth and those technologies and advancements do come back around to us.
Scientific advancement isn’t a straight line, it takes steps forward and backwards and long circuitous loops around. Think of how many headlines you’ve seen about “scientists working on X accidentally discover Y” those scientists may not always pursue Y further at that time but that opens the door for other scientists to pick it up and keep moving forward.
We are made out of the same basic stuff as the moon, as Mars, Venus, Jupiter, the sun, everything in the universe is made of the same stuff and plays by the same rules. Understanding what’s happening elsewhere in space helps us to better understand what’s happening here on Earth and how to fix our problems.
Also imagine trying to tackle things like climate change without the ability to monitor and measure the causes from satelites.
And NASA creates billions of dollars of economic output and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, rockets and laboratories don’t build and maintain themselves, so we’re not just throwing money into a hole. There are a lot of people that are directly dependent on NASA for their livelihood.
And whether we like it or not, someday we will no longer be able to live on earth, whether by our own doing, because the sun burns out in 5 billion years, an asteroid impact, a gama ray burst, etc. The universe is a hostile place and we’re living in a fragile little bubble. We hopefully won’t have to worry about that for a long, long time, but we don’t truly know how long our little blue paradise will last, and we need to have backup plans before then. It’s time to start planting trees under whose shade we will never sit.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The climate was basically holding its own fairly well for thousands of years, until humans got a bug up their ass to create this whole industrial/scientific age.
So the answer is to send even more space rockets and satellites and stuff up there? As if launching rockets ain’t adding even more carbon dioxide and crap in the atmosphere? Hell we’ve already got so much junk in space right now satellites are already colliding with each other.
If there’s anything I’ve ever come to realize about humans, it’s that wherever we go, we’re gonna trash the place up. We haven’t even set foot on Mars yet we’ve already put our junk on it.
Quit looking at dead rocks and empty space, and figure out what to do with the trash and planned obsolescence crap going on right here on Earth.
Look at all the vehicles on the road right now. Ignore whether they’re ICE or electric, both cause pollution. It takes about one barrel of crude oil to make one average car tire, so you can’t tell me electric vehicles don’t also use oil. Plus all the pollution it takes to mine lithium, plus the extreme dangers of lithium battery explosions…
When will people realize that mass transportation isn’t a necessity, it’s a luxury? Cars, trains, airplanes, whatever, once upon a time none of that even existed, yet somehow humans survived for over 100,000 years without all that stuff.
Mass manufacturing wasn’t a thing either until fairly recent times, yet people did just fine without all our precious junk. It’s pretty much all junk when you look at the whole picture. Hell, the very device I’m typing on will probably end up in a landfill within a few years. Same with whatever you’re reading this on.
Companies don’t even want to make things that’ll last anymore, that doesn’t make them as much money. They want you to throw your crap away and buy something new. Recycling? Hah, that’s about a joke. That doesn’t make them any money either.
With about 8 billion people on the planet, politicians wanna ban women’s choice as to what to do with the contents of their uterus, as if there’s some shortage of humans. Hell that’s half the problem, there’s way too damn many of us.
If we can’t fix our problems right here on Earth first, we’re just gonna bring our problems with us wherever we go. Humans are a cancer on the Earth.
Edit: Spelling
So what’s your plan? How do you propose to solve all of our many problems?
Because if you don’t have one, you’re just complaining to hear yourself complain. And if you do have one, fucking do something to bring it to fruition besides being a contrarian asshole on a lesser-used internet forum.
I just pointed out at least one problem we can easily tackle. Completely ban planned obsolescence.
Force companies to do everything possible to stop deliberately making disposable items. Go back to designing more reliable things that last longer, are easier to repair when things fail, and make spare parts more available again.
Basically go back to making things last 10+ years if taken decent care of, quit with all this disposable shit.
Also, as far as transportation, what ever happened to the good old days of horses? Your transportation doubles as your lawn mower, meaning you don’t have to buy gasoline for your vehicle or your lawn mower.
Being more realistic about that last point, the bicycle is one of the greatest inventions mankind has ever come up with. It’ll help the environment more if people ride bicycles more often and quit going out for luxury drives and flights and crap.
It sounds like the suggestion you want to make is to go back to our pre-industrial state. Is that actually what you’re suggesting?
Go read my other comment under this thread. Start by banning planned obsolescence.
Link? The only comment of yours that I can see that mentions planned obsolescence is the one I replied to.
Shouldn’t be too hard to find, but here ya go…
Space is the final frontier. It’s where we’ll be doing the rest of our exploration of the universe. The reason you would do that is not so much to discover new life and new civilizations but to discover new phenomenons and technologies that can help us better understand the universe, help us live better/easier, help us experience cool new things, etc.
The news is full of it, excitement seems high, and I really don’t get it. I’m not against space-related research, but why suddenly the moon? And why send people there? Can someone fill me in on what’s to be gained or why one might be excited about it?
It’s the closest celestial body, so it’s great for practice. Next up, Mars. Both of these are solid, so we can land there and check them out. Get an idea for what works and what doesn’t, how to build habitats in space, etc.
Yea but so what? Hydrogen is literally the most common thing in the universe, no fucking way there is also some on the moon 🤯. Then what’s so spectacular about moon ice, water, or even oxygen? And why does it need people to explore it?
Water is one of the main substances you need for life as we know it. Essentially all life on Earth needs water to some degree, so any time we find water somewhere we get excited because what if it’s alien life? Wouldn’t that be cool? Aside from that, oxygen, hydrogen, and water in space is good to have, because then you don’t have to carry it from Earth. If we set up a base on Luna, maybe we can drink water that’s already there, and use hydrogen and oxygen that’s already there to power machinery. It’s expensive as fuck to get anything into space, so if you don’t have to carry something to your destination because there’s already some there, that’s just better.
Again why? Is this some repetition of the Cold War Soviet-US competition?
For governments, it’s part dick measuring competition, part trying to get their names in the history books, part trying to not be left behind. For scientists and the rest of us, it’s part livelihood, part curiosity. Space is hard to deal with, so we come up with all sorts of stuff to let us live up there. Here’s a list of a bunch of stuff that stems from the space race: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/08/space-race-inventions-we-use-every-day-were-created-for-space-exploration/39580591/
Exploiting resources has to be a joke, right? Do they want to sell us the newly found moon water? The only point I get is the tourism aspect. Because, of course, I always encourage billionaires to pursue dangerous hobbies 😊
There’s a bunch of shit in space that we have very little of, or is hard to reach, on Earth. Not necessarily water, I went over that earlier. But all kinds of other stuff, including He3 which is useful used in nuclear fusion.
Where else are the billionaires going to flee to once the planet’s proper fucked?
Humanity is benefited by space. Getting to space from Earth is very hard because of Earth’s gravity well. The Moon sits at the rim of Earth’s gravity well and getting to space from the Moon is comparatively much easier, saving about 97% of the energy that it would take to launch the same mass from Earth. Resources such as water can be mined on the Moon to be turned into rocket fuel (Liquid Hydrogen + Liquid Oxygen). The Moon is therefore an excellent staging ground for humanity to get a foothold in space, enabling bigger spacecraft, longer missions, and much much more activity in space. Humanity needs to expand beyond Earth for its own benefit. The Moon is the first stop to getting there.
Moon is very attractive as a staging area for missions further into the solar system. Since it has low gravity and no atmosphere, it’s much easier to launch stuff from the moon. It would also be possible to build a space elevator on the moon even using current level of technology.
The moon is also a great test for building a space colony. It’s a much more realistic prospect than trying to build one on Mars. At some point humanity will become a spacefaring species unless we make ourselves go extinct. Exploration of the Moon is the first step towards that.
It’s also worth noting that such large scale projects necessarily result in a lot of technological development that has lots of practical applications here on Earth.
Finally, I personally think that it’s good to have an ambitious vision that humanity can work towards. Space exploration is inspiring and it’s a positive vision for our future. This is something that’s sorely lacking in our world today.
Part of the Moon being a staging area is that it may end up being feasible to source material from the Moon instead of Earth. This allows for shipping materials at a much lower energy cost since we don’t need to lift off from Earth’s gravity well.
And for the space elevator, the reason why a space elevator on the far side of the Moon is valuable is because making the elevator longer than necessary could make it a good launch point for other missions. This will act as a slingshot to others entities.
Yeah, I think that creating a local mining industry on the moon will be necessary to start doing any serious projects like building a space elevator. The whole idea should be to bootstrap a colony that’s as self sufficient as possible.
Hello sir or ma’am. I’m from the brightside corporation - can I interest you in owning a slice of paradise? Where you say? The moon!
They want rare Earth metals and minerals and such, duh.
If they are on the moon would that not make them rare moon metals?
You may have a point. But nobody has plundered those materials yet, meaning they’re not quite as rare…
Thanks for all the great answers and the super interesting discussion! I learned a lot and even get the excitement, although a lot of it seems extremely far away from today’s possibilities. Mainly the whole mining of Helium3, transporting it back and then actually using it. So I wouldn’t be surprised if an even more efficient energy technology was discovered and applied before the first mining activities on the moon begin.
Also, the moon as a possible source of disputes scares me way more than the possibility of using it as a permanent colony or launching point into the great nothingness excites me. And I don’t mean that because WW3 seems kinda possible right now, but also because even friendly nations still have disputes over tiny islands. I just don’t think we are ready for it.
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I enjoyed the active interaction on this post!
