/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9172319]

Why is Mars the current objective when it would be easier and more practical in the long run to build a moon base?

[Anonymous No.9172320]

lower gravity, no resources, muh red planet

[Anonymous No.9172321]

>>9172320
The Moon shares the same origin as Earth, surely it has mineral wealth?

[Anonymous No.9172323]

Moon is poor in hydrogen = no water

[Anonymous No.9172334]

>>9172319
>Mars
>current objective

All important people are for Moon

[Anonymous No.9172338]

Luna is next century's tourist trap. We can't get too ahead of our time here.

[Anonymous No.9172341]

>>9172319
You get to the Moon, so what?

I mean it's possible for the richest on the planet but it's not really doing much for them.

[Anonymous No.9172350]

Joint international moon expedition to help China colonize the moon when?

[Anonymous No.9172364]

>>9172341
>You get to the Moon, so what?

Outside of being the perfect place for commercial and institutional research?

[Anonymous No.9172398]

>>9172319

>Why is Mars the current objective when it would be easier and more practical in the long run to build a moon base?

Mars has hydrogen and nitrogen, Moon is dry.

However there are strong indications that NASA will abandon Mars in favor of Moon first approach. Deep Space Gateway will be above the Moon. Makes sense. Going to Mars before Moon is colonized is like trying to run before learning to walk.

[Anonymous No.9172399]

Haven't we had this exact thread with teh very same pic. just a week ago or so?

>>9172319
>Why is Mars the current objective when it would be easier and more practical in the long run to build a moon base?

To get off the ground you need money and to do that you need political alignment. The Moon is already "done" and the next challenge is therefore Mars.

Sure, as most people in here will know there is a lot left to learn about our Moon but that alone is not sufficient. After all there was only once a trained geologist on the Moon and he was on the very last mission.

[Anonymous No.9172406]

>>9172399
China is fine with conquering Moon, which pretty much force the USA to get on Moon as well.

[Anonymous No.9172415]

>>9172406
China is also using the moon for their geopolitics spiel and isolate the NASA from the rest of the science community.

Russia and ESA will join China, while the USA is left alone.

[Miniature Spacecraft No.9172477]

>>9172319
Because people are afraid to get seriously involved in space colonization. So they set an unreachable goal before 30 or 50 years.

[Anonymous No.9172490]

>>9172477
>people can only live like the Morlocks on Mars at best
>can't return

[Anonymous No.9172516]

>>9172323
>They sent TNT to explode a small exterior portion of the moon.
>they found water.

Nigga, you are dumb as fuck.

[Anonymous No.9172522]

>>9172319
A lunar base would allow for more efficient construction of spacecraft.
The moon also has deposits of titanium
The lack of other resources vital for survival is a problem
But as a staging ground for interplanetary exploration, the moon would be the first step

[Anonymous No.9172543]

People will not live outside of the earth. The colonization bullshit non-science guys are sprouting hurts space exploration.

[Anonymous No.9172555]

>>9172516
>They sent TNT
>TNT

Nope, they just crashed a thing into the moon using only kinetic energy.

[Anonymous No.9172557]

>>9172338
>implying people in the next century won't spend their entire life in a VR simulation

[Anonymous No.9172562]

>>9172543
Who doesn't want to live in some underground shithole with only mushrooms to eat because that's the only thing that can effectively grow there?

[Anonymous No.9172689]

>>9172562
Indeedily.

So you can chose to live in an overcrowded, dangerous world where you cannot get far safely, the atmosphere is a constant worry and yo can be killed at any moment while eating food you really don't want to know how was made.

Or you can go to the Moon.

[Anonymous No.9172702]

>>9172689
Moon would be more like an Antarctic expedition for the people.

[Anonymous No.9172775]

>>9172702
I am used to live north of the polar circle.

Where can I get my ticket?

[Anonymous No.9173438]

>>9172321
the moon has fucktons of resources, and they're all far easier to obtain, and far more useful to obtain, than on earth
and then you have the craters which hold all the delicious minerals of the asteroids due to them being what caused the craters
we should have had a moonbase 40 years ago

[Anonymous No.9173903]

>>9172319
That's the ESA's current objective.

[Anonymous No.9173906]

>>9173438
>> fucktons of resources
The Moon doesn't even have appreciable quantities of carbon which are necessary to turn iron into steel

[Anonymous No.9173911]

>>9173906
Carbon is extremely common in asteroids though
could easily haul in the needed carbon from NEOs for the lunar refineries, exactly like it is done down on earth

[Anonymous No.9173985]

Perfect place for asteroid mining

[Anonymous No.9174400]

>>9173906
Why use steel when you can use titanium?

[Anonymous No.9174920]

>>9173911
ship some from venus

[Anonymous No.9175054]

>>9173438
the ayys told NASA took fuck off their lunar base :P

[Anonymous No.9175126]

>>9173911
>>9173906
oh ok, I guess we need to move some spess coal at a couple of KILOMETERS PER SECOND! Just so we can have steel on the Moon. And plastic. And electrodes for refining shit like aluminum. And a whole bunch of other things that require carbon.

Not against the idea of having a Moon base, but we really do have to acknowledge that the Moon is rather limited when it comes to certain elements.

>>9174400
Oh I don't know, because it's much more energy intensive to refine titanium, and because you need carbon to refine titanium.

[Anonymous No.9175128]

>>9172415
>Russia and ESA will join China, while the USA is left alone.
Good
International cooperation bullshit is exactly what's killing space exploration. I want another space race, goddamnit.

[Anonymous No.9175151]

>>9175126
you do know how fucking easy it is to transport shit through space, right?
to the point where moving shit all around the solar system is easier to do than bringing shit from earth to LEO

moving carbon around for the steel mills will be no fucking different than the freight train systems we have on earth to do the exact fucking same thing

you're thinking that this is harder than it actually is, it'll be one of the easiest things humanity has ever done

[Anonymous No.9175179]

>>9175151
>you do know how fucking easy it is to transport shit through space, right?
What are you, eight years old?

[Anonymous No.9175228]

>>9175126
>it's much more energy intensive to refine titanium, and because you need carbon to refine titanium.
Compared to lifting steel up from Earth? And the carbon used in refining titanium can be reused as the titanium metal is pure.

[Anonymous No.9175247]

>>9175228
The point is to stay here until proper technology for easy space travel is invented. Otherwise its hopeless.

[Anonymous No.9175280]

9175247
shitposters do not deserve (You)s

[Anonymous No.9175304]

>>9175247

[Anonymous No.9175371]

>>9175228
oh boy, so we're going to recycle volatiles! I'm sure that will be easy! You know, preventing leakage in the hard vacuum of space and all. Oh and converting CO2 to graphite, yup, that's so EASY!

[Anonymous No.9175382]

>>9172319
The only reason I can think of for a permanent base on the moon is mining helium 3 for fusion power, which we don't have the capability to do yet.

Mars is a desert wasteland. I can't think of a good reason to go there other than because we can.

[Anonymous No.9175390]

The only reason I can think of for a permanent base on the moon is mining helium 3 for fusion power, which we don't have the capability to do yet.

[Anonymous No.9175400]

>>9172477
ESA is just too retarded and will stay with NASA

[Anonymous No.9175478]

>>9175304
>giving it a (You)

[Anonymous No.9175799]

>>9172543
>>9172562
I'd do this gladly. I don't live to eat. I live to read and game. I can do that tier of living in any awful space environment. I'd even feel more secure knowing the average IQ was much higher and the barrier between me and the outside world was high-IQ technicians against inanimate natural hostility rather than normal-IQ police officers against animate human hostility.

[Anonymous No.9175804]

>>9172702
the moon is going to be the grandest industrial park mankind has ever seen

the biggest excavators to ever be built will be featured there, and it will be glorious

[Anonymous No.9175864]

>>9173906
>carbon which are necessary to turn iron into steel
Holy shit, man. Come out of the 19th century, join us in the 21st. There are lots of kinds of steel, and many other interesting structural metals.

Anyway, the moon does have carbon. Carbonaceous asteroids have been falling on it for billions of years.

[Anonymous No.9176010]

>>9175864
>>There are lots of kinds of steel, and many other interesting structural metals.
now what about plastics, electrodes for aluminum reduction/batteries, crucibles for silicon production, organic fucking chemistry, and pretty much anything that requires carbon?

>>Anyway, the moon does have carbon
in parts per million concentrations! Meaning you need to move HUGE TONNAGES of regolith to get tiny amounts of it.
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM5E.html#t513
>>Carbonaceous asteroids have been falling on it for billions of years.
yeah, good luck finding them.

>>implying the impact won't volatilize the carbon

[Anonymous No.9176056]

>>9173438
The spice must flow.

[Anonymous No.9176079]

>>9176010
You would manufacture alternative materials that could take their place, or fucking import them because you do not need to manufacture literally everything ever on a mining base designed to export metal for constructing shit

Like here on earth, importing specific supplies is very common place, for specialization is the grand thing space bases will do

[Anonymous No.9176117]

>>9172319
>colonizing moon
>2 years latter
>Everyone's skeletons turned into jelly because of gravity
>barely an atmosphere(literally barely, Nasa found out recently that they actually have one formed of sodium and potassium)
>Can´t terra form at all
>shitty resources which don´t worth the cost to send to earth
>basically impossible to survive there alone
>the mission cost one hundred quadrillion a decade simply because the colony will be heavily reliant on earth as it is impossible to survive there for long periods.


Mars is being selected because it is pretty similar to earth, has an atmosphere.

Mars exists on the outer edge of the habitable zone, a region of the Solar System where life can exist. Mars is on the border of a region known as the extended habitable zone where liquid water on the surface may be supported if concentrated greenhouse gases could increase the atmospheric pressure.


Why does /sci/ think that they can outsmart Nasa?

[Anonymous No.9176142]

that is some of the shittiest bait I have ever fucking seen
Never before have I seen a post so fucking stupid, so fucking uneducated like this
Never at any point did anything you wrote resemble an intelligent thought
Everyone that read it is now dumber, and may god have mercy on your soul

[Anonymous No.9176169]

>>9175371
Carbon is now volatile?
Umm, OK.

[Anonymous No.9176241]

>>9175390
There are scientific reasons too such as telescopes and radio telescopes, which can be made quite enormous on a world with 1/6 of the gravity and zero wind. This could be used to form vast baseline interferometric radio telescopes.

[Anonymous No.9176253]

>>9175390
You aren't thinking hard enough
Energy wise, it is far less expensive to send shit from the moon to LEO than from the surface of earth to LEO
thus, widescale mining operations would give us the ability to cheaply construct stations around earth and beyond
Lunar mining would also give us the ability to assemble and fuel probes and ships in space, far larger, far stronger and with far more instruments than any probe we could hope to send from earth

The moon has more than fusion fuel, it has lots and lots of delicious metal too, and will be humanity's gilded spaceport when we conquer the galaxy

[Anonymous No.9176261]

>>9176117
>relying entirely on natural gravitational forces
>needing an atmosphere
>terraforming
>caring about sending resources to Earth

[Anonymous No.9176267]

>>9172557
We need space habitats to get the population of trillions needed for the flood of constant content for VR for absolutely any niche interest.

[Anonymous No.9176333]

>>9176117
>Why does /sci/ think that they can outsmart Nasa?
Perhaps because NASA leadership demanded Challenger to be launched while the real /sci/entists told them it would be disastrous. Or because the NASA people of the 1960's have been replaced by career bureaucrats who have killed astronauts in two space shuttle disasters. Or the NASA leadership who has done everything in its powers to NOT follow the advice from Feynman.

There has been a massive rot.

[Anonymous No.9176363]

>>9172319
Because of the fear for projects like "muh secrit missile launcher" getting off

[Anonymous No.9176375]

>>9172319
There's nazis on the moon, and they have nukes. They'll leave us alone as long as we stay the fuck off.

[Anonymous No.9176383]

There is no space travel with rockets. It's all a big hoax for some reason, probably to push people away from actually going into space.

[Anonymous No.9176389]

>>9176375
Most plausible theory here

[Anonymous No.9176395]

>>9172319
>muh atmosphere
>muh rust
>muh seasonal wet poles
>canyons LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

It's a terrible idea to get stated on Mars. The only logical way to get a solar empire started is by:
1) Moon base
2) Asteroid mining
3) Outer moons

Bombarding Mars with junk asteroids is a good idea, FIGHT ME!

[Anonymous No.9176406]

>>9172477
Aren't the planets and suns hollow?

[Anonymous No.9176408]

>>9175151
>you're thinking that this is harder than it actually is, it'll be one of the easiest things humanity has ever done

[Anonymous No.9177054]

>>9172319
because theres alieans up there, yo

[Anonymous No.9177151]

>>9172319
There's nothing of any value on the moon.

[Anonymous No.9177392]

>>9176117
>Mars exists on the outer edge of the habitable zone, a region of the Solar System where life can exist.
>where life can exist
You mean where life can feasibly develop. Life outside the CHZ is possible with technology, just don't expect it to be as comfortable or cheap as living on Earth.

[Anonymous No.9177963]

>>9176079
>>manufacture alternative materials
make semiconductor grade silicon without a carbon crucible, GO!

>fucking import them because you do not need to manufacture literally everything ever
depending on the amount of consumables you have to ship up, it may not be very practical to make things on the Moon.

Are we necessarily saving mass by making things on the Moon?

>>9176169
CO2, CO sure as heck are. So your carbonaceous chrondite impacts the Moon, it gets really fucking hot. So fucking hot that the carbon inside can snatch oxygen from SiO2 in the soil and turn into CO2.

Of course, we've yet to find any carbonaceous chrondites on the Moon, so we can expect such things to be rare.

>>9176395
>>Bombarding Mars with junk asteroids is a good idea, FIGHT ME!
how are you going to get enough delta V to move something that masses more than a mountain.

[Anonymous No.9177972]

>>9177963
I think you're being retarded on purpose

The moon would be useful for giganigga quantities of steel, titanium, aluminum, water, and other shit we like building out of or use as fuel, as that is what it is rich in
Asteroids can get us all the carbon, rare earth elements, and platinum group metals we need because that's what those are rich in
nobody is fucking planning on making computer chips on the moon, because there's no goddamn reason to make computer chips on the moon, other places are doing so instead, and will sell them in exchange for the construction materials you're refining

you'd save insane amounts of money because of how goddamn expensive it is to move mass through the atmosphere and gravity well of earth
The moon is not going to mine gigatons titanium to make lamps and cars for earth, it's going to mine that titanium for habitat stations and battleships for use in space, because there is not a chance in hell that someone will pay bring up the megatons of mass needed to build such things from earth

[Anonymous No.9177992]

>>9177963
Solar sails; there's no hurry. Sink Phobos while we are at it.

[Anonymous No.9177997]

>>9177972
>>water
Available in ppm quantities in lunar soil, just like carbon! The recent results of the lunar interior being wet have been disputed:
https://m.phys.org/news/2017-08-analysis-rusty-lunar-moon-interior.html

We do know there is water in permanently shadowed craters, but current estimates are that this is not much. Current estimates are that the volume of water we could obtain from the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon, would have about the volume of sydney harbor. For something distributed across the entire moon this isn't that much. I wouldn't exactly call this a giganigga quantity of water.

In addition, we don't know much about the environment of permanently shadowed craters. We do know it's difficult to obtain power in craters that are permanently shadowed.

>> computer chips
No, what you need silicon for is making solar cells for power.

Sure, you save money, but do you save enough money to justify the cost of sending mining equipment, refineries, and consumables to the Moon?

Sure, future space battleships are cool and all, but the real question is at what point in terms of mass put on the Moon do we need to put manufacturing equipment up. At what point are the costs justified?

[Anonymous No.9178023]

>>9177997
>pointedly ignores the other materials to focus specifically and exclusively on one particular thing
>intentionally ignores the fact that mines are permanent things and would continuously output
the materials they mine
>ignores the fact that most of the equipment can be created and assembled on site through 3D printing
yep you're a shitposter
ok, so we take out the water part, Good think it's ridiculously common in asteroids, They can mine for the water instead of the moon, that doesn't stop the moon from supplying and building that fleet of science ships and habitat stations for people to live in, it will just be the hulls that are made from moon metal instead of the whole thing at once
funny, the exact same system and process happens on earth too, what a coincidence

[Anonymous No.9178144]

>>9178023
And pray tell how are you going to extract those other materials especially without using much hydrogen?

>> mines are permanent things
The equipment doing the mining and refining is not permanent. Mining machines break down and require maintenance. Extracting materials require consumables. Even if we say attempt to recycle CO2 from our graphite electrodes burning up from reducing aluminum oxide to aluminum and carbothermic reduction of titanium oxide to titanium, we are going to get some leakage.

>> most of the equipment can be 3D printed
Prove it

[Anonymous No.9178260]

>>9172319
>>9172341
The moon would be the perfect exotic resort for the rich, and unlike Mars which requires insane dedication and commitment to colonize or even visit, people can go to Luna, fuck around, then come back at the end of the week.

It's in a legal gray area too (gray rocks, get it?) So you could do whatever you wanted up there without repercussions....just gambling I'm sure.

The moon also would allow us to launch larger vehicles and satellites into space for much cheaper than we can on Earth if a long magnetic mass driver was built. With such low gravity we could also build a space elevator with existing materials.

Scientists could experiment with dagerous or risky substances etc. without risking the earth's biosphere.

A moon base would be an incredible location for both radio and optical astronomy.

I disagree with everyone who thinks mining would be profitable, other than in situ resource utilization there's no point mining anything to sell; but the list of other great benefits still makes it better choice than Mars.

[Anonymous No.9178268]

>>9176395
Asteroid mining is a waste of time, and only Titan is suitable for a base if you can keep out the cyanide gas and stay warm.

Radiation will kill anyone stupid enough to go to Europa, and even if you land dem icy sea monsters.

[Anonymous No.9178277]

>>9172319
The current objective should be the asteroid belt.

[Anonymous No.9178300]

>>9178268
>ultra high quality rare earth elements and platinum group metals in greater quantities than exists in the entirety of the earth's crust in individual asteroids
>water and volatiles out the ass for fuel
>waste of time
is this some sort of retard olympics or something?

[Anonymous No.9178433]

>>9178277
no, that would be completely fucking retarded
the asteroid belt is far, far too distant to do anything in at the moment, We have no logistics, no industry, and no ability to send anything of decent size there in any reasonable timeframe
The moon is ideal because it has lots of materials to harvest, is extremely close, and can be used as a spaceport and shipyard to send those more distant missions, this is why NASA is planning the deep space gateway

the asteroids that will be mined are going to be the fucktons of NEOs listed here http://www.asterank.com/
those will give the exact same shit that the belt asteroids will, but wont cost and arm and a leg to reach and start mining

[Anonymous No.9178488]

>>9176333
>implying undergrads on /sci/ are "the real scientists"

[Anonymous No.9178544]

9178488
>reading comprehension
You don't get a (You)

[Anonymous No.9178568]

>>9178433
>The moon is ideal because it has lots of materials to harvest
The entire asteroid belt has about 4% of the Moon's mass.

[Anonymous No.9178701]

Can we compare space travel to the age of discoveries? I'd say we're at a pre-Columbian analogue right now, just travelling small distances in precarious ships.

[Anonymous No.9178711]

>>9172398
>Going to Mars before Moon is colonized is like trying to run before learning to walk.

Waiting until the Moon is colonized before going to Mars is like waiting until you can win an ultra-marathon before learning how to tread water. That is to say, once we can go to the Moon often and easily enough to warrant a full blown Moon base, we can work on going to Mars as well.

With reusable launch vehicle technology the cost of putting mass into orbit drops to the point that you can justify launches from Earth that only carry fuel instead of trying to produce fuel from resources on the Moon. That means you don't really need the Moon at all to go to Mars, except maybe as a prerequisite to learning more about spending a lot of time far from Earth in reduced gravity.

Also, if your eventual goal is getting to Mars, but you really want a Moon base to start with, you can just size your launch vehicle for your eventual Mars effort and use the extra capability to help your Moon program proceed faster. That beats eventually needing to design a new, bigger rocket in the future, but good luck convincing a politician on taking a more expensive first step instead of two steps that would cost a lot more in total, but gives them the option to just drop the bigger vehicle at a later date (this will happen to SLS Block 2).

[Anonymous No.9178718]

>>9172477

>those gas giant cores

Jupiter's core temperature is like 4x hotter than Earth's, even the coldest gas giant core is probably more than twice as hot as Earth's core.

[Anonymous No.9178759]

>>9178144

Yes you will lose some carbon even if you try to keep the loop closed. Luckily, there IS carbon on the Moon, just not in high concentrations, and most of it is deeper underground. As long as the industrial system is producing goods is will be mining large quantities of rock, and as long as the rock it mines up contains enough carbon to compensate for leakages in the system then there's literally no issue.

Also as long as the Moon colony was nuclear powered, obviously via liquid fuel breeder reactors, they'd have essentially unlimited energy regardless of the time of day.

[Anonymous No.9178783]

>>9178268

Titan is shit, the rocks are water and therefore there's no significant mineral resources including nuclear fuels, plus it's too far away.

Ideally if you're going to colonize the Saturnine moons you're going to focus on the smaller ones and just build space habitats rather than attempt to live on Titan, with it's high delta V requirements and lack of most resources. You can stay long term anywhere in the Saturnine system because the planet has very weak Van Allen belts.

Titan is most useful as a research lab for studying exotic prebiotic environments and possibly even for experimenting on artificial cryo-life.

[Anonymous No.9178831]

>>9172319
I am not a regular /sci/ poster and am borderline uneducated by stem major standards but I will take a shot at this.

>more practical
Getting nailed with radiation on a rock with no atmosphere is not more practical. Everyone who stayed there would have cancer after any significant amount of time. Mars has an atmosphere that can somewhat shield radiation. Also mars has water and resources that lead us to believe it could be made to be long term sustainable without repeat supply trips. The moon is pretty much guarenteed to never be built up into a sustainable ecosystem, you'd have to build scifi dome-type cities and sustain them with resources from earth. And also what would be the benefit of doing this? To say "hey we made it to the moon"? Mars would have the benefit of giving as a pretty distant jumping off point for future missions in our solar system to go a little quicker, maybe.

There's really just no benefit to existing on the moon, and no chance of ever building it up into something worth existing on. With mars that isn't the case. Also living on the moon would give everyone cancer.

[Anonymous No.9178846]

>>9178831

>Getting nailed with radiation on a rock with no atmosphere is not more practical. Everyone who stayed there would have cancer after any significant amount of time.

Not if you use lunar soil for shielding. This you have to do on Mars too, because while Mars atmosphere helps a little, it is not enough. Any deep space colony, and it does not matter if we are talking about Moon, Mars or asteroids here, will inevitably be buried under few meters of soil. Cosmic rays are a bitch. It is one reason why Musk is interested in tunnel boring machines recently.

[Anonymous No.9178934]

>>9172319
>ore practical in the long run to build a moon base

100% agree... build thriving moon colony THEN go to Mars.

[Anonymous No.9178935]

>>9177997
>No, what you need silicon for is making solar cells for power.
For electronics you need monocrystalline Si, typically cut from a boule. I have seen projects where they use quartz crucibles.

For solar cells you can use polycrystalline Si, and for that you can melt Si in large quartz crucibles and let them cool down slowly. The requirements are far simpler than for the monocrystalline route.

[Anonymous No.9178963]

>>9178488
Sure. Though a strawpoll indicated a surprisingly large fraction were post docs. That or they thought they were.

[Anonymous No.9178971]

>>9172319
>>9172319
>>9172319
>>9172319
>>9172319
FINALLY!

Geez, It's simply a PR reason. Dumbasses. Get back to the moon dammit!

[Anonymous No.9178978]

>>9172319
you can't build a Space Elevator on a tidally locked body

[Anonymous No.9178980]

>>9178978

READ this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator

[Anonymous No.9178983]

>>9178277
Meanwhile the Japanese companies show some moxie. Pic. related.

[Anonymous No.9178993]

>>9178980
ah, that makes sense actually... doesn't seem quite as stable though, give it enough of a push and it'll fall back into the moon's Sphereoid of influence
>>9178983
>TFW the moon is gonna become blue permanently

[Anonymous No.9178997]

>>9172319
The Moon may depend on Earth not exploding. Mars is separate.

[Anonymous No.9179012]

>tfw your super rich cousins will never take you on all inclusive space cruise to Luna resort
>you will never play low gravity mini golf
>you will never play low gravity laser tag
>you will never do a short reenactment of apollo 11
>you will never swim in a zero gravity pool, "surfacing" in a bubble to catch your breath

>you will be alive for the ancient internet and trump
>you were born in time to watch the birth of cellphones
>your parents existed in a time before tv
>dank memes
its not all bad i guess, got to experience some major cultural turning points. i bet anons in the future will be all butthurt they never got to experience bi-gender society, or drive the deathtrap that is the car


but still, i want to play luna mini golf or low-g paintball damn it

[Anonymous No.9179015]

>>9178997
>The Moon may depend on Earth not exploding

WTF! Dude put the smoke-pipe down, you have had enough,

[Anonymous No.9179018]

>>9179012
>you will never swim in a zero gravity pool, "surfacing" in a bubble to catch your breath

On my bucket list is to swim on the moon.

[Anonymous No.9179056]

>>9179018
i wonder how they would make something like that safe. or even if you could swim without it being a closed container.
wouldnt whatever force you exert on the water just transmit to pushing water into any available void?

[Anonymous No.9179067]

>>9179056

Moon has 1/6 earth gravity... everything behaves in gravity as you expect, just slower. No need to radically redesign your common living space... I image that the moon will be the #1 spot for wealthy retirees. No diseases, higher oxygen content, lower gravity... perfect conditions for an aging body.

[Anonymous No.9179137]

>>9179018
>2014
>not wanting to fly around like a bird in an over-pressurized dome.

[Anonymous No.9179159]

>>9172319
The turbo lasers that would be needed for Breakthrough Statshot should be set up on the moon instead of the earth so that the atmosphere won't scatter the beam..

[Anonymous No.9179222]

>> 9178300
>> asteroid rare earth elements
I don't understand this meme. Do you have any evidence that asteroids have enriched concentrations of rare earth elements?

But, there are asteroids that have organic material, native metals, and stony material. Pic related. Organic materials enable us to do chemistry to extract things more easily. We can separate out different metals using something like nickel carbonyl process. Yes we can even extract platinum group metals this way. We can attack oxides in the rock to get silicon, titanium, and aluminum. In addition, the organics let us do chemistry as we know it enabling us to make all kinds of plastics, resins, rubbers(for seals!), and more. In other words, almost everything you could want or need.

>>9178268
Titan is just plain silly. it requires quite a bit of delta V to get too, in addition to being far. Being far makes it difficult to do stuff with robots. There's no near term use case.

[Anonymous No.9179223]

>>9179222

[Anonymous No.9179245]

>>9179015
No. I'm just elaborating Musk's mandate for establishing a human colony on Mars. Nibiru would fuck up the Moon along with the Earth.

[Anonymous No.9179255]

>>9178268
What if the icy sea monsters are cute?

[Anonymous No.9179265]

>>9179245
>No. I'm just elaborating Musk's mandate for establishing a human colony on Mars. Nibiru would fuck up the Moon along with the Earth.

Assuming that last major Earth impact was 65 million years ago, I assume we are OK for least a few thousand more.

[Anonymous No.9179269]

>>9179255
not him but maybe we could hug them then? and like give them presents to make them like us but we do that first because maybe they could try to eat us at first when we try to hug them

[Anonymous No.9179446]

We have NO idea what sort of resources are availible on the moon, anyone talking about whether hydrogen or carbon are there needs to stfu

[Anonymous No.9179478]

You don't get a (You)

[Anonymous No.9179627]

>>9179446
Bullshit. We have physical samples of the Moon here on Earth from the Apollo missions.

In addition, as far as hydrogen and carbon go, we are pretty sure those elements are rare on the Moon. From what we know of the Moon's geology, large portions of the Moon were molten for extended periods of time. Carbon and hydrogen would outgas at these temperatures and float off into the vacuum of space never to be seen again. Second, we also know that hydrogen and carbon can't really accumulate on the surface because it's too warm for water and CO2 ice to form.


BUT not in the permanently shadowed regions. We know permanently shadowed regions have water and maybe even CO2 because we crashed an empty rocket stage into one and looked at the emission spectra of the ejecta.

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/21oct_lcross2

More work needs to be done to understand what the environment of the these permanently shadowed craters is like. We found signatures of strange volatiles like CO2, methane, ammonia and what not. What exactly are they? In addition we need to figure out what form the volatiles are in. Do we have an ice skating rink or ice mixed with dirt?

It is very hard to explore these permanently shadowed craters, because we can't use solar panels and NASA's running low on plutonium. If we really want to colonize the solar system, the most important first step we should take is exploring permanently shadowed craters on the Moon.

[Anonymous No.9181248]

>>9179627
>Bullshit. We have physical samples of the Moon here on Earth from the Apollo missions.
Many have been badly stored and are damaged by our atmosphere.

[Anonymous No.9181255]

>>9178997
Even if all nukes detonate at once the Earth won't crack & fall apart.
Unless some huge asteroid colide with Earth.

[Anonymous No.9181419]

>>9181248
But, there were samples that were stored in sealed rock boxes and stored under nitrogen.
https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lun-fac.cfm
https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/education/_documents/the lunar sample collection.pdf

Second, we can drill into the samples to get rock unexposed to the atmosphere. Alternatively we can etch and vaporize them to see what they are made of.

[Anonymous No.9181500]

>>9172319
>t. newt

[Anonymous No.9182189]

bump

[Anonymous No.9182334]

>>9178718
Stop talking out your ass

[Anonymous No.9182353]

>>9179222
You know why they're called rare earth metals? Because they're rare. You know why they're rare? Because plate tectonics keep melting plates and forming new ones, and every time a fraction of the rare earth metals sinks to the earth's core, until only useless lightweight garbage makes its way into the plates. You know what doesn't have plate tectonics and molten cores? Moon, Mars, asteroids.

[Anonymous No.9182363]

Oh dog, this thread is like all those Youtube documentaries about Moon base vs. Mars base with Robert Zubrin in them.

[Anonymous No.9182391]

>>9172562
Meanwhile the ISS has already grown half a dozen different vegetable crops, and that thing is just a medium sized house worth of crowded drums glued together in earth's orbit.

It is absolutely possible to grow just about anything in an artificial environment if you can afford providing all the necessities for it.

- space (costly)
- a suitable atmospheric composition (pretty much automatically given around human habitation, also beneficial to the atmosphere and psychology of human habitation)
- a suitable temperature (pretty much automatically given around human habitation)
- water (pretty much automatically given around human habitation, quantity may be an issue)
- the correct blend of nutrients (easy to manage with electronic controls)
- the correct blend of light (easy to manage with LEDs)

Done.

[Anonymous No.9182397]

"Welcome to Lunar Habitat 03, traveller. Please remain in the oxygen lounge until your name is called for registration."

[Anonymous No.9182473]

Whether Moon, Mars or asteroids, what do colonialization proponents have to say about radiation? None of these celestial bodies have magnetic fields, so theoretically you'd have to dig yourself fifty feet into the ground anyway.

And what about gravity?

[Anonymous No.9182496]

>>9182473
We just have to understand what gravity is and increase it. Remember that gravity is just a habit after all.

[Anonymous No.9182527]

>>9178718
>>9182334
Uranus is estimated from it's radiative flux to have a core temperature of 5000-6000 K, while the earth's core is estimated to have a core temperature of 5700K. Yeah he really is talking out of his ass.

https://ase.tufts.edu/cosmos/print_chapter.asp?id=11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_core

Now what this temperature implies is crazy. We might be able to land something on Uranus because the depth at which we expect to hit liquid(2000K) is expected to be less than the melting point of the materials we have today. Tungsten and ultra-high temperature ceramics are stable at these temperatures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-temperature_ceramics

So we could land something on uranus, but it'd be very hard to get pictures or any sort of signal back. 2000 K is too hot for traditional electronics to operate. Getting power is hard because there's no sunlight. Using fission/radioisotopes for power gets very interesting because we need the nuclear fuel to be hotter than the ambient temperature. We'd have to design it so that the fuel melts down on purpose!

The enormous depth makes communication difficult. You'd have to send a signal through more than 5000 kilometers of uranus. And that's in a best case scenario when the mothership is directly above the probe. Not to mention 5000 kilometers is a very long time to fall. Shit could get really weird because of this. While the materials we have are believed to be solid at these temperatures and pressures, we know fuck all about chemistry at these pressures.

Really the only way to get these pressures is with a bomb, so it's difficult to figure out is shit like corrosion occurs at these temperatures. Take this fucking shit for instance:
https://www.universetoday.com/130666/uranus-neptune-may-keep-hitlers-acid-stable-massive-pressure/

[Anonymous No.9182532]

>>9182496
>thought gravity was understood
>read about it
>it's not understood at all

[Anonymous No.9182542]

>>9182473

You dont need to be fifty feet underground. To reduce the radiation levels received to current NASA standards for its astronauts, a thickness of 1-2 meters appears to be sufficient[1]. If earth-like levels are desired, then 3-5 meters would likely be needed.

http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Lunar_Architecture#Radiation

[Anonymous No.9182546]

Could we build some kind of space elevator with current materials on the Moon?

[Anonymous No.9182564]

>>9182391
They don't grow enough to eat. The problem is bigger than just growing food, it's that we just don't have closed loop life support that works. We can't even do this on Earth, see the failure of the Biosphere 2 experiment. How you deal with shit is a pretty goddamn big issue.

>>9182397
So if we're seriously industrializing the Moon oxygen is not a going to be a problem. The moon is fucking made of oxygen. So a lot of the useful things we want on the moon are all oxides, silicon, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, all oxides. The problem is getting rid of all the oxygen. If we just dump it out, we risk contaminating the pristine lunar vacuum. This would make certain industrial processes hard to do

[Anonymous No.9182583]

>>9182564
>We can't even do this on Earth, see the failure of the Biosphere 2 experiment.
Yeah, because it was as much a scientific experiment as it was an overcomplicated PR stunt with god awful commercial management, trying to achieve a naturally balanced ecosystem instead of a far more reasonable technologically aided cycle. There's no reason to introduce dozens of species and several climate spheres on a moon base as long as you can maintain air composition and nutrition with the materials and technology at hand.

Also I wasn't trying to suggest successful space agriculture self-sufficiency, I only stated that according to ISS experiments it's possible and not limited to cave mushrooms.

[Anonymous No.9182599]

>>9182583
Oh, and Biosphere 2 was staffed by a bunch of absolute clowns. There have been other experiments on crew isolation in simulated spacecraft environments, such as the 520 days long Mars 500 experiment which even in its longest phase encountered no noteworthy social conflicts.

[Anonymous No.9183019]

>>9182564
>The problem is getting rid of all the oxygen.
The oxygen is valuable in itself and should be recovered, for use on the base for breathing or for use in chemical rockets.
>If we just dump it out, we risk contaminating the pristine lunar vacuum.
Unlikely, the very low gravity would make the gases escape.

[Anonymous No.9183042]

>>9182546
Yes, we have the ability unlike on Earth, but a mass driver would be a better option.

[Anonymous No.9183091]

They don't draw 'em like they used to.

[Anonymous No.9183101]

>>9172319
Humans are NEVER EVER going beyond leo again. We're gonna die on Earth.

[Anonymous No.9183358]

>>9183101
Elon Musk is going to send people around the moon. They might get to die outside of leo.

[Anonymous No.9183421]

>>9172338
>implying once white people are a minority scienceing will continue at all

[Anonymous No.9183445]

>>9175151
This is you.

[Anonymous No.9183837]

>>9173438
>delicious minerals

[Anonymous No.9184059]

Bump

[Anonymous No.9184533]

>>9172319
>Moon
>Mars
>not based Mercury
http://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html

[Anonymous No.9184748]

>>9182391
It's simple math.

How much space do you need?
How much energy does it take?
How much resources do it take?

All three things you don't have on Mars.

[Anonymous No.9184752]

>>9184748
also

>Your farm on earth suffers energy problems

Well, corn will grow anyway

>Energy problems on the moon

Well, time to eat our prepared meal packages

>Enery problems on Mars

Well, I guess we are now all dead.

[Anonymous No.9184764]

>>9183101
>Humans are NEVER EVER going beyond leo again. We're gonna die on Earth.

The meek shall inherit the Earth.
The rest of us shall go to the stars.

[Anonymous No.9184769]

>be on Mars
>space food becomes the only currency on Mars

[Anonymous No.9184800]

>>9172319
> Why is Mars the current objective when it would be easier and more practical in the long run to build a moon base?

1. Seems like a worthy challenge. Been to the moon.
2. At first glance seems more hospitable to human settlement.
3. At one point had running water and Hollywood martians on surface.
4. Reddish planet looks more like familiar dirt.

Unfortunately, much of this is overrated.
The moon is the logical stepping stone to more advanced space endeavor.

[Anonymous No.9184815]

>>9172319
Because pushing further than previous. Also can someone tell me why its harder to launch rockets from the northern hemisphere?

[Anonymous No.9184832]

>>9184815
It should be equally as difficult as the southern hemisphere, you'd think

[Anonymous No.9184836]

>>9184832
The equatorial regions are supposedly the best launch sites to my knowledge.Is it something to do with the weather in the norther and southern hems?

[Anonymous No.9184839]

>>9184836
The extra speed from the Earth's rotation (fastest at the equator) gives an initial boost to the velocity of the rocket.

[Anonymous No.9184843]

>>9184839
Ah, thanks my man.

[Anonymous No.9184860]

>>9184769
Food would be plentiful you moron. Mar's atmosphere is 98% CO2 so crops will grow even faster than on Earth and taller too because of the lower gravity.

[Anonymous No.9184876]

>>9184843
Further, its not just a linear boost. The advantages are cumulative. The boost makes it easier to get to 100m, and since you spent less fuel to get to 100m altitude, you spend even less to get to 200m, and so on. It's like compound interest.

[Anonymous No.9184877]

>>9184860
>Food would be plentiful you moron.

Oh boy

[Anonymous No.9184881]

>>9184876
I appreciate the elaboration but you lost me at linear.

[Anonymous No.9184885]

>>9172406
China is the only real reason the entire world needs to get its fucking head out of its ass and get something done. If those soulless fuckers get into space and fucking colonize anything at all, we are all fucking fucked.

[Anonymous No.9184889]

>>9176010
>plastic

You can grow stuff for making plastic now.

Also,

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/Moonrsquos-rich-surface-contains-silver-carbon-dioxide/article15788109.ece

[Anonymous No.9184896]

>>9184881
The benefit isn't just one-and-done. To be in Low Earth Orbit, you need to be going ~8km/s. The Earth rotates at about 0.4km/s at the equator. You might think this means launching from the equator would save you only 0.4km/s worth of fuel, but it actually saves you a lot more, because it makes the entire trip easier. I'm making these next numbers up, but it'll explain the idea. The first 10% of the trip costs 5% less fuel, which then means the next 10% costs 8% less fuel, which means the next 10% costs 12% less fuel and so on. The benefit stacks, kinda like compound interest.

There's other effects going on too, than just the free speed boost. For instance, if you're going to geostationary orbit, you want to launch as close to the equator as possible so you don't have to spend fuel fixing your inclination.

[Anonymous No.9184980]

>>9184877
>giving it a (You)

[Anonymous No.9185354]

Is NASA even developing a new space craft? We do not even have the capability to get into space now, no?

[Anonymous No.9185363]

>>9172477
What are Neptune and Uranus made of?

[Anonymous No.9185495]

>>9178260
best post in this thread and not a single reply

[Anonymous No.9185502]

>>9181255
>17k nuclear warheads
>not enough to knock a planet out of orbit

wew

[Anonymous No.9185510]

>>9172319
The current objective of Mars is to send a human there not to populate it you dumb.
When better tech is made to overcome the escape velocity of earth the moon will be the first place to establish a base.

[Anonymous No.9185530]

>>9185495
> not a single reply
That's usually good.
Means no one is arguing/ taking issue with the post content.

[Anonymous No.9185668]

>>9178260
So what substances are so fucking dangerous that we have to experiment with them on the moon to avoid contaminating earth's biosphere.

>>launch larger satellites
Space probes are made as high tech as fucking possible. Seems like an awful lot of effort to build high tech industry on the Moon just to launch bigger space probes.

We could just use a momentum exchange tether to give a big probe launched from earth a huge speed boost.

The Moon is better than Mars though. It's there, we know what it's made of, and it's close. Travel to the Moon takes days, travel to Mars takes months plus you have to wait for earth to be in the right place. So it's faster develop mining and ISRU tech on the Moon. It's 1 second away in terms of ping. We can eliminate the need to send people because the lag is short enough that people can operate robots from earth.

[Anonymous No.9185678]

>>9172338
Luna isn't it's name btw

So many people think that, but it's actually just called the Moon, unless you're speaking Latin

[Anonymous No.9185711]

>>9185502
It isn't
Nukes are really, really weak compared to the size of planets
they can smash up the surface, but they will do absolutely fucking nothing further

[Anonymous No.9185861]

>>9184896
you could just tell him how the whole delta-v equation works and it'll be less confusing

It's of course not a free speed boost, building a rocket slightly bigger is much cheaper than shipping it thousands of miles

[Anonymous No.9185870]

>>9175179
>>9176408
>>9183445

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network

Read this, pinheads.

[Anonymous No.9186233]

>>9173903
and they are building a miniature rocket for it...

[Anonymous No.9186339]

>>9184533
My experience with several (unintended) moho flybys and high speed impacts say is bad idea. Outer solar system is better. Easier. Safer. More fun too.

[Anonymous No.9186376]

no seriously ESA how do you get to a moon base with such a small rocket?

[Anonymous No.9187056]

Communism is threatening to the survival of humans as a species. This is because asteroid mining will incentivize the technological development necessary for colonizing the solar system. Every heard the expression "better to not keep all your eggs in one basket?"

Also information systems can be built to only allow access to users with a password. The user with a password can be considered the owner of the system. This is inherent to computing so the universe is inherently ownership based.

[Anonymous No.9187367]

Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth, why bother colonizing Luna when it doesn't want to make the relationship work anymore

[Anonymous No.9187500]

>>9172319
Because the moon was already occupied by someone else and was still being used by the time we made it there.
100% serious.

[Anonymous No.9187816]

>>9186233
>>9186376
Size doesn't matter, we're good at docking stuff in space now. Size matters even less if the ESA can figure how to do propellant depots.

[Anonymous No.9187837]

>>9176117
Would the lack of an atmosphere and extreme conditions on the moon be useful for certain industrial processes that wouldn't be economical on Earth?

[Anonymous No.9187968]

>>9185678
In Russian its Luna, and to be honest it sounds better than the Moon.

[Anonymous No.9189622]

>>9187837
Yes.

[Anonymous No.9190416]

But why give a damn about the moon when we should be building orbital rings?

[Anonymous No.9190457]

>>9190416
>can't even build a space station with a proper shitter
>wants to build orbital rings

[Anonymous No.9190462]

>>9190457
orbital rings are geostationary. They have about 90%ish gravity. So you don't need to deal with all the horrible aspects of free fall.

[Anonymous No.9190467]

>>9190462
How is a stationary ring supposed to have gravity? And especially how is it supposed to hold up in itself in that case?