/sci/ - Science & Math

>>16087278
>lavatubes
could be quite large
>>nukes
even if you could destroy them, they are probably valuable enough that you wouldn't want to. They shield stuff from radiation, they insulate stuff from thermal extremes, and you can potentially pressurize them.
>>16088242
DARPA's interested in taking over the Moon. They want to look for resources on the Moon and even develop mining techniques to extract minerals at low concentrations.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/03/the-us-government-seems-serious-about-developing-a-lunar-economy/
They even want to build Moon trains.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/northrop-grumman-to-conceptualize-moon-trains-for-darpa/
They seem to believe the Moon has strategic importance. I think there might be ways to justify mining, even if geology says there probably isn't anything on the Moon. So if you want there to be a gold rush, instead of helium-3, I'd say go for metals. Some fusion rocket designs call for ridiculous amounts of tantalum, like 6% of world production in a year for one rocket. It may be that fusion fuel is basically free, but reactors require rare resources. So there's a need to mine lots of these rare minerals, because more reactors means more economic growth. You might be able to say the Moon has lots of these rare minerals because that's what the mass concentrations are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_(astronomy)
The Moon is gravitationally one of the lumpiest bodies in the solar system. You could say, that this is due to heavy dense elements like tungsten, rhenium, tantalum, all good stuff for fusion reactors, getting concentrated. Worst comes to worst, well it's been proposed one could drill to the center of the Moon with nuclear bombs and mine the lunar core.

>>16065399

Lunar lave tubs are are best place to set up a space colony.

>>15322420
for me it's giant lava tube ghettos on Luna or Mars

>>12666797
One benefit to underground is the massive lava tubes that could be there.
If you are able to seal the walls of the tube to have air pressure inside, then you could easily have colony built inside without the need for complex digging or structures. The amount of pressurized space could also be very good for people's health instead of being inside a cramped commie block type building