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/sci/ - Science & Math

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4369160 No.4369160 [Reply] [Original]

So,

what the hell is the benefit of colonizing on the moon?

>> No.4369167

What is your breathing doing to benefit humanity?

>> No.4369172

>>4369167
how is you going into fail troll mode a benefit to this board?

>> No.4369175

>>4369167
This guy has a point. Stop hogging my oxygen.

>> No.4369184

Well assuming we plan to eventually terraform the moon, it would help us understand global warming better.

>> No.4369195

>>4369172
I am making this place shittier so r/science is more popular.

Anyways, just use l'hopitals rule and solve like usual.

>> No.4369205

If you're colonizing the moon to produce a space-faring civilization in the Sol system, then it makes perfect sense.

If you're colonizing the moon to produce a massive flow of government money into the pockets of earthbound aerospace companies, then it makes ZERO sense.

Guess which one Gingrich is aiming for? Hint: It rhymes with "second option".

>> No.4369209

Prolonging of human consciousness. Enough said.

>> No.4369216

>>4369205
First option?

>> No.4369219

also don't bother responding anymore

>>>/v/129748477?cooldown=1329351300761#129748477

i just posted this on /v/ and got a better discussion

you guys are faggots

>> No.4369238

>>4369219
>It would serve as an experiment for gathering data on colonizing other places when our Solar System starts to die out

Indeed.

>> No.4369260

>>4369209
>>4369184
>>4369205
NOPENOPENOPE
First one: prolonging human consciousness, lol nope, the only way for ALL humans to disappear would be either natural causes (viruses, zombies, etc), the other would be to destroy the earth (a lot easier!). Destroying the earth in anyway would also destroy the moon colony too (example: with the earth pushed away from the suns gravitation, the moon will not continue regular rotation) option one is idiotic too, if we had a moon base, and humanity on earth stopped there would be no supplies on moon THERE ISNT INFINITE AIR ON THE MOON!

>> No.4369278

>>4369238

Oh Jeebus. FACEPALM.JPG

The Earth will become uninhabitable in about 1 billion years. That's about about 100000 times longer than our recorded history. So there's plenty of time to prepare.

Sadly, since we're totally blowing through our Petroleum Inheritance in about 300 years, which is about 1/30th of recorded history, we've pretty much already run out of time. Without Petro-Power for our industries, we just won't be able to have the industry prepared to achieve enough launching and supply capability in order to form a space-faring culture.

Up to 10 million years from now, nothing like Humans will be on the Earth anyway. Some catastrophe will have wiped out Earth's simians. The end.

>> No.4369287

>>4369260
> THERE ISNT INFINITE AIR ON THE MOON!

You speak from the viewpoint of a majority of people who receive most of their education from television. Congratulations, you're a moron.

The largest fractions of the lunar regolith and rocks is OXYGEN. Sound familiar? Sure, it's bound up in the regolith and rocks, but if you're gonna suffocate, you're gonna work like mad to liberate it.

The rest of your rant is so fucking ignorant that it's just not worth dealing with.

>> No.4369288

we don't have the technology or materials yet. It would be like trying to produce a modern videogame with 1960's computers.

>> No.4369297
File: 78 KB, 319x308, colorizing the moon.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4369297

moon colorization makes it more pretty.
easier to look at.
more rainbowier.

I'm all for colorizing the moon.

>> No.4369308

>we don't have the technology

Gee I guess we better wait for the technology to fall into our laps

>> No.4369324

It would help with overcrowding and allow us to expand our each. If we could terraform it then its essentially just more space for even more self-sustaining resources.
On top of that it would help understand the mechanics of colonizing other planets through experimentation.

And It's always good to have a backup planet in case somebody decides to nuke this one.

>> No.4369329

Moon colonization is every engineer's dream

>> No.4369343

>>4369160
They have found a way to boil moon dust to make water
water can be split into hydrogen (rocket fuel) and Oxygen
water and oxygen allow for living and growing on the moon, and the hydrogen allows for a space gas station, because it cost a shitload in fuel to leave earths atmosphere, but very little to travel in space (extremely low gravity) and if you refuel at the moon, you can travel a ton farther in this solar system.

>> No.4369345

>>4369324

How would we terraform in Moon?
There isn't NEARLY enough gravity for an atmosphere to form.


Also, does anyone know if shooting a ball of super-dense material into the core of a planet would increase its gravity? Or would that just fuck it up beyond repair?

>> No.4369359

>>4369345
Yes, we'd have to make it more dense. It's possible, provided the right tools, materials and engies that won't crack the moon in half.

>> No.4369372

>>4369209
It MIGHT be enough, if it was even roughly related to the topic.

Here's a tip: if you say anything in less than a full reasoned sentence, you failed.
Here, you didn't show how that topic related to a moon colony, why your topic was any benefit, or even why you brought it up.

>> No.4369383

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akek6cFRZfY

Some people just don't understand it.

Sage because I don't contribute.

>> No.4369384

>>4369359

So let's say we find a material that's incredibly dense (one millimetre weighs 500 kilograms, let's say) would we just launch it from space and have it hit the surface of the planet so it goes to the core (sort of like an artificial meteorite, but its small size wouldn't disturb the crust), or would we have to drill a hole to the centre of the celestial body in question and then insert it?

>> No.4369393

I can understand going to to the moon for astronomy purposes. But if we're going to put the effort into it, why not just start going to Mars which has much more resources to work with. Hell, we even have a pretty decent plan for going there with today's tech without the need for huge ships.

>> No.4369398

>>4369345
It would do both, of course.
But, why imagine something we cannot come close to doing?

The physics of what you suggested are harder than anything we could get from terraforming the moon. We can barely move objects the size of buses!

>> No.4369408

Well, for starters, we could put all of the atheists that don't appreciate the earth god made for us on the moon.

>> No.4369409

Dark side radio telescope observatory
Helium 3 mining
Industrial activity with no pollution regulations
Low grav shipyard where completed vessels can be very large but lift off into orbit with minimal fuel

>> No.4369413

This is the dumbest idea favored by the biggest dumb shits. Why would we spend ungodly amounts of resources to (attempt) to colonize a dead, frozen rock thousands of miles away? We can't even solve alternative energy for christ's sake! Before we ever need to worry about colonizing the moon, we need to cut our dependence on fossil fuels. We put a man on the god damn moon in a decade, but it's taking us longer than 30 years to even develop alternative fueled cars? The priorities of humanity are so fucked up, I don't see how we're still advancing at all.

>> No.4369425

>>4369413

>Why would we spend ungodly amounts of resources to (attempt) to colonize a dead, frozen rock thousands of miles away?

Because it contains even more ungodly amounts of resources, and more importantly they are in a much weaker gravity well, so anything we build with those resources can be much larger and use less fuel to get into space.

>We can't even solve alternative energy for christ's sake!

How so? They're doing it right now. Are there no renewable energy projects where you are? They are commonplace here. I have begun to see nissan leafs frequently, and I drive an electric motorcycle myself.

>> No.4369433

>>4369425
Read the Case for Mars. You'll be arguing this point for Mars rather than the Moon. The Moon was a stepping stone, a proving ground. Mars is where the real honey is at.

>> No.4369443

>>4369413
Think about it like this, humanity has always been a parasite, we took the resources from some place and when they run out we move to other place, now that the resources of earth are running out we have to do something about it, and we obey to our nature which is going to another place for more resources.

>> No.4369453

>>4369433

I have read the case for Mars. I am well acquainted with Dr. Zubrin and am in fact a crew member for his MDRS simulated mars mission project in the Utah desert. Please don't assume others haven't been exposed to the same information.

I argue for the moon because of the lower gravity and decreased expense of reaching it. As Earth's natural satellite it is the logical place for a shipyard and industrial space based manufacturing. Mars is an ideal destination for settlement, not for industrial/construction use.

>> No.4369457

>>4369453
I disagree but I respect your involvement in the matter.

>> No.4369465

>>4369433
> The Moon was a stepping stone, a proving ground. Mars is where the real honey is at.

Absolutely insane from the standpoint of energy and materials. You know NOTHING about the subject. Shut the FUCK up until you do!

The moon is Humanity's FACTORY FLOOR for creating a space-faring infrastructure. Mars is just another dead world with a prohibitive gravity well. The moon is extremely close, is covered with a pre-pulverized ore body already (the regolith), has no atmosphere to interrupt solar energy or launchers, and has a fairly light gravity.

The moon's big problem is an almost total lack of volatiles like N2 and H2. But any real tech civ on the moon would be sending out missions to harvest comets... not that Gingrich and other fat White male politician assholes have that in mind.

>> No.4369475

>>4369425
Yes, there has been some improvement in alternative energies, especially in the last few years. I don't know where you live, but alternative energy vehicles are certainly not commonplace. A few electric powered vehicles doesn't even make a dent. We should have hydrogen fuel cell cars all over the place by now. We should have electric vehicles that can travel for more than a few hundred miles at most. While the population is steadily rising, the main concern at the moment is not space, but global warming. The colonization of the moon would be the last step (meaning we've fucked out planet beyond recognition). Why don't we just intervene before that point?

>> No.4369492

sadly /sci fails to realize that there would be many legal issues with who settles the moon and how. The planet can't go a day without some major crisis. How are we going to agree on who settles what in respect to the moon? grow up.

>> No.4369502

>>4369413
In most ways, we haven't advanced at all.

It isn't really advancement to look at CD digital data and say 'we're doing it all the same, but we improved it!'
Looking at the cars example, we've gone backward in several ways (no one believing in economy could do anything but prevent the Hummvee and large SUVs from being on market) and still insist on working against kinds we all know are superior (electrical, mass transit, and local energy).

>> No.4369510

>>4369465
I actually do have some knowledge on the subject shouting man. How would Mars with an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide, lighter than earth gravity, high silicon count, and even maybe water not be more viable in terms of colonization? Plus its closer to the asteroid belt which would be better for profits anyways. And "Mars is just another dead world with a prohibitive gravity well". The Moon is a completely dead world. Sure if you want the ore for short sight ventures it would be more profitable. But with investment, Mars would make so much more. Also you can make fuel from chemical processes using carbon dioxide. That's fuel being made on the planet. Not your method of solar panels which is still highly inefficient. And that's tech from the 1800s if I recall correctly.

>> No.4369512

>>4369393
Mars is not an alternative to Moon.
It's a whole, separate, unrelated topic.

The moon is near, has a shallow gravity well, no atmosphere, many familiar minerals, and stability.
Mars is very distant, has a much deeper gravity well, unfamiliar ground, much more atmosphere and much less stable chemically, and is poor for anything but staying there.

>> No.4369514

>>4369329
Mars colonization is my dream

at the very least, the moon can be used as some sort of communications relay station. like, you know. a fucking satellite.

>> No.4369521

>>4369425
>Are there no renewable energy projects where you are? They are commonplace here.
I think you've fallen for the political name-rather-than-actuality gamble.

Just knowing there are projects in existence isn't actually making our society alternative-energy founded.
Seeing a few vehicles keeps them very far into the 'uncommon' territory; 'common' might mean 20-80 percent of the vehicles. In this case, we're talking about making the world run with them in the heavy majority, so we're not there until 80-95 percent of industrial nations are alt energies.

>> No.4369532

>>4369443
>humanity has always been a parasite, we took the resources from some place and when they run out we move to other place,
strongly negative remark; ask yourself why you describe them in a deliberately negative way.
(Not 'how it is justified or accurate; specifically, why you made it negative).

Now, is there any form of life that doesn't behave similarly?
So, would 'using resources, finding new ones, using those' be a way to describe one activity of life in the first place?
If that is true, and this is a necessity, then isn't it to be respected?

>> No.4369545

>>4369260
>First one: prolonging human consciousness, lol nope,
Firstly because it has nothing at all to do with colonizing the moon, right?

>the only way for ALL humans to disappear
What? What does THAT have to do with either prolonging consciousness OR moon colonizing?
No one needs to make humans disappear!

> would be either natural causes (viruses, zombies, etc),
Zombies? and Zombies are a natural cause?

Are you an idiot?

>> No.4369559

i'm gonna go see neil degrasse tyson ramble about space colonization tonight. i'm prepared to disagree with everything, however i like certain arguments in this thread....

wish me luck

>> No.4369562

>>4369443
>and we obey to our nature which is going to another place for more resources.
that is not 'our nature' -- it is what uninformed animals do because of their lack of planning, foresight, and restraint.
Humans have all of those qualities, so I don't have any idea why you equate them with animal behaviors anyway.

Your logic is the kind of logic that tries to justify murder because animals compete, then blames people for creating the wrong kind of society (arguing that we should have created something against our nature).

>> No.4369604

>>4369562
I'm not trying to justify it, I'm just trying to find an explanation, we have always done that, and we will continue to do it because we don't know any other way of living.

>> No.4369695

>>4369475

>We should have hydrogen fuel cell cars all over the place by now.

I must disagree with this. Hydrogen fuel cells have huge downsides that promoters of the technology are not honest about.

In fact, Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society wrote an article about it:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax

>> No.4369696

we can sell advertising space

>> No.4369700

>>4369510

>How would Mars with an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide, lighter than earth gravity, high silicon count, and even maybe water not be more viable in terms of colonization?

He wasn't talking about colonization. For that, Mars is superior. He was talking about industrialization and use as a shipyard. For that, the moon is superior.

>> No.4369711

>>4369521

>I think you've fallen for the political name-rather-than-actuality gamble.

I don't think so, I follow the actual department of energy statistics showing the growth rate of renewable energy surpassing that of fossil fuels. Those huge heliostats and gulf stream turbines aren't holograms or photoshop, they really got built, and more are being built now.

>Just knowing there are projects in existence isn't actually making our society alternative-energy founded.

The act of knowing it, no. But the actual projects themselves do in fact contribute towards that goal. Your cynical feelings about it doesn't make them immaterial.

>Seeing a few vehicles keeps them very far into the 'uncommon' territory; 'common' might mean 20-80 percent of the vehicles. In this case, we're talking about making the world run with them in the heavy majority, so we're not there until 80-95 percent of industrial nations are alt energies.

It's only 2012, not 2050. Keep your pants on, the change was never going to happen overnight.

>> No.4369713
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4369713

>>4369205
>HURR DON'T PUT MONEES INTO AEROSPACE COMPANIES

Cause they won't have anything to do with colonizing space right?

>> No.4369719

Do they call traveling at MSG?

>> No.4369888

>>4369711
>I follow the actual department of energy statistics showing the growth rate of renewable energy surpassing that of fossil fuels.

I hope to fucking god that's the case. Everyone already uses fossil fuels, dumbass. Growth rate is a horrible measurement. It has to be purely ratio. Right now fossil fuel consumption far out ways that of alternative energy.

>> No.4369903

>>4369888

>I hope to fucking god that's the case. Everyone already uses fossil fuels, dumbass. Growth rate is a horrible measurement. It has to be purely ratio. Right now fossil fuel consumption far out ways that of alternative energy.

Of course. But factually it is the case that renewable energy installations are being built at a rate that outpaces fossil fuels. And the amount of the grid powered by coal actually went down between 2009 and 2010, then again between 2010 and 2011. The 2012 figures aren't out yet.

That probably doesn't mean they are shutting down coal plants, just that no new ones are being built, or that the growth rate of renewable facilities is causing the percentage for coal to shrink even though the plants are by and large not being decommissioned.

Renewable isn't just panel and windfarms anymore. Those are largely being phased out in favor of tidal turbines and heliostats specifically because both are capable of providing uninterrupted baseload power and offer higher output for less investment. Spain got burned bad on traditional panel farms and switched to heliostats, because of the Solyndra fiasco we're now doing the same.

Look up what heliostats are. They produce power day and night with no panels and no batteries. It's low tech but clever, and a damn shame we didn't build them all this time instead of panel farms, which are a joke in terms of economic feasibility. It will take until 2015 for panel farms to even reach grid parity with coal, heliostats did so a decade ago.

>> No.4369913

Example:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/22/brightsource-first-solar-developer-get-federally-b/

400 megawatts output, with less space usage than a panel farm with a double digit megawatt output. It's cheaper, it uses no batteries or panels (just cheap mass manufactured mirrors) and it runs continuously overnight using molten salt to retain heat gathered during the day.

It's stone age tech but so incredibly superior to solar panels that anyone who supported utility scale panel farms should be ashamed of themselves. Panels are only for places too small for heliostats like homes, or portable power generation, they should never have been scaled up for utility use.

>> No.4369916

>>4369695
>In fact, Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society wrote an article about it:

Fuck you, Robert Zubrin, and his Mars Society. The chief form of hydrogen fuel cells would be electrolysis, not elemental hydrogen from the god damned sun. Obviously in our current situation we cannot depend on electrolysis of water. This is why fucking engineers and scientists need to be working on this shit (which the government could easily employe, creating many more jobs. But this is another topic completely).
The problem isn't just the cars. The entire infrastructure in America is crumbling. The entire electric grid is old and dilapidated. A single problem can cut power to millions. We need to start with more reliable, more efficient electricity production (of course this is needed for all forms of energy). This would eliminate much of cost right there. Of course, that's only one small aspect of an enormous problem that needs to be solved.

>> No.4369936

>>4369916

>The chief form of hydrogen fuel cells would be electrolysis, not elemental hydrogen from the god damned sun.

What are you talking about? He never suggested we'd get hydrogen from the sun. And electrolysis is rarely even 50% efficient. Why feed electricity into such a lossy process to make hydrogen when you can just use that electricity to charge a lithium battery at 99% efficiency? (Yes, this is the actual charging efficiency of lithium batteries, which is why EV types are so insistent on using them over other types)

Fuel cells are batteries. You know that, right? They are structured almost identically, with a cathode and anode as well as electrolyte. The principle difference is the presence of a proton exchange membrane. Fuel cells have the same downsides as batteries, but worse.

For instance did you know they wear out? That's rarely ever mentioned in documentaries about them, but they do, even faster than lithium batteries. The very best fuel cells degrade and need replacement after six years, assuming only two hours of driving per day.

Did you know the tanks leak? Hydrogen is notoriously good at escaping containment. A hydrogen vehicle left to sit will slowly "bleed out" over the course of about a month.

Did you know that they cost more than EVs, and don't offer better rangfe? They have a hard limit on range at around 250-300 miles due to the safety issues involved in storing hydrogen under high compression. We already have an EV with a 300 mile range, the Tesla Model S, and no hydrogen vehicles are even out yet. By the time they are, EVs will have superior range and at a lower price (Fuel cell vehicles are also more expensive.)

Still want fuel cell vehicles?

>> No.4369940

Probably something more physiological.
Not so much physically, though there are some

Brining a permanent human presence on the moon would be a massive leap for us as a race. We might stop looking at our selves as countries and more as a planet and ideally could change everything. It would also give us more practice with space travel and better prepare us for future trips to mars, and possibly Ganymede and beyond

Or people would gawk at it and forget about it in a month

>> No.4369972

Escape velocity is considerably less on the moon than on Earth. So if we had a base on the moon, we could save a lot on rocket fuel by launching our Mars rockets from there. Of course, there'd have to be a way to have rocket fuel on the moon in the first place... Or maybe use some other kind of propulsion. Either way it's easier to launch things from there.

>> No.4370311

>I don't think so, I follow the actual department of energy statistics showing the growth rate of renewable energy surpassing that of fossil fuels.
Yes, exactly: GROWTH RATE -- not actual operating plants and usage.

Those huge heliostats and gulf stream turbines aren't holograms or photoshop, they really got built, and more are being built now.

>the actual projects themselves do in fact contribute towards that goal.
of course they do; but most of it just doesn't exist, or is in extremely tiny amounts.
I'm not being cynical or working against alt energy; I just insist you can't call it a common source.