How viable is a lunar colony?

>>7837577
It's possible but completely unnecessary.

>>7837577
Possible but literally 0 reason to do it

If by "viable" you mean "pays for itself" then not very. The moon has no resources nor strategic significance in the near future. Even scientific goals can be mostly accomplished by much cheaper rovers.

>>7837577
Completely impossible but necessary.

>>7837577
At a beginning stage fine, but I think in the later stages the moon will be built up to a space station-like caliber, allowing for more efficient mining of asteroids and faster collection of solar power transferred to Earth via future tech.

>>7837580
>>7837584
Wouldn't it be much easier to build things like mass drivers or space elevators on the moon rather than earth?

What about for a factory to construct spacecraf to be launched with less fuel necessary to reach escape velocity. That would be economical.

>>7837580
Explain why.

Wouldn't the construction of thunder cannons be viable on the moon?

>>7837577
Ridiculously expensive at the present time, but totally necessary for 'real' solar system exploration. Wherever we go we need water, there is water on the moon in quantity, this coupled with low gravity for launches makes a moon facility at some point essential - it will be automated with a skeleton shift system of supervisors. But probably not in your lifetime.

>>7837577
with all those precious metals and rare earths smashed into it's surface, along with only having 1/6 the gravity of the earth you could mine a lot deeper. Besides, scientists at NASA have already figured out a way to extract water out of moonrocks, so that's a major obstacle already overcome.

>>7837593
>>7837619
Once space travel technology becomes economical and the transfer of minerals from the moon back to earth is profitable, you'd think there'd be an explosion of development. The greatest goldrush in human history.

>>7837660
unless Elon reads this and decides to go for it.

>>7837588
?
You can't say that until prospecting missions have gone there, desu they would probably find tons of shit.

Even just as a port for resupplying interplanetary spacecraft, it would be viable.

I'd say its more viable/useful than going to mars.

>>7837660
unless we use chemistry to create water
unless ayy lmao technology exists
typical wannabe scientist, pretending to know shit

Define "colony."
Are we talking just a permanently-inhabited outpost? Or a self-sufficient, multi-generational settlement?

It would be possible but completely pointless.

>>7837588
>The moon has no resources

What about dat helium 3

>>7837584
>>7837580
Idiots, you have bases on the moon for when you create the giant orbital spaceship creation yard.

>>7837826
When the Chinese starts large scale strip mining of the Moon for He3 it will, all of a sudden, become a national imperative for the US to go to the Moon.

The world depends on vast amounts of cheap energy but noone knows how much oil is left in the Middle East, and there is uranium for 20 years once the proposed 10x number of reactors are built.

Secondly, to launch thousands of SPS (solar power satellites) the scale may tip in the advantage of lunar fabrication.

Vast frequency ranges are today reserved space research. Build huge radio telescopes on the Moon and you can release billions of dollars worth of frequency bands. You can even create huge baselines with radio telescopes on the Moon and Earth.

>>7837693
Yeah, right.
>Inconclusive evidence of free water ice at the lunar poles was accumulated from a variety of observations suggesting the presence of bound hydrogen. On 18 November 2008, the Moon Impact probe was released from India's Chandrayaan-1 at a height of 100 kilometres (62 mi). During its 25-minute descent, the impact probe's Chandra's Altitudinal Composition (CHACE) recorded evidence of water in 650 mass spectra gathered in the thin atmosphere above the Moon's surface.[7] In September 2009, Chandrayaan-1 detected water on the Moon[8][9] and hydroxyl absorption lines in reflected sunlight. In November 2009, NASA reported that its LCROSS space probe had detected a significant amount of hydroxyl group in the material thrown up from a south polar crater by an impactor;[10] this may be attributed to water-bearing materials[11] – what appears to be "near pure crystalline water-ice".[12] In March 2010, it was reported that the Mini-RF on board Chandrayaan-1 had discovered more than 40 permanently darkened craters near the Moon's north pole that are hypothesized to contain an estimated 600 million metric tonnes (1.3 trillion pounds) of water-ice.[12][13]

Water may have been delivered to the Moon over geological timescales by the regular bombardment of water-bearing comets, asteroids and meteoroids or continuously produced in situ by the hydrogen ions (protons) of the solar wind impacting oxygen-bearing minerals.

>>7837580
helium 3 and titanium mining.

plus if you want to build anything massive at a lagrange point,. you sections of it on the moon and then put it into orbit.

>>7837606
What so important on the moon that you wanna bring into orbit?

>>7838372
People have said previously things like helium-3 and rare earth metals.
Besides I was thinking more along the lines testing to see whether either of those things were viable.

>>7837577
Venus cloud cities are the superior option to the Moon or Mars.

>>7837577

far in the future it will make sense a way station between earth and the rest of solar system. Minimal gravity and atmosphere. obit ships around easily, reach/leave easily.

A spaceport of sorts. But again, only after travel between planets is perfected and we have more efficient means of moving through space.

>>7838742
>Venus cloud cities
To achieve what, exactly? Meet more women?

>>7837580
Plenty of reason to use the moon. Easier to build and launch a spacecraft or any manufactured item, resources, research, He3 if fusion becomes viable.

the robots can't sing well
swell/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B488z1MmaA

No but seriously.

>>7838766
This implies there's reasons to go to other planets. Unless we're going to get something out of the gas giants or their moons, that leaves the solid planets. And we can't land on Venus, so we have Mars and Mercury. So this "Space Port" is not as much a port as it is a "Freeway On-ramp".

>>7837577
Define "colony".

If you mean something like the ISS, but on the moon, it's viable, just very, very expensive. And doesn't get us much more than ISS. Microgravity rather than zero-g? Cheaper and safer to just build a centrifuge-type space station in LEO.

If you mean something that's more-or-less self-sustaining, and has some degree of resilience (i.e. it's not a matter of "evacuate or die" the first time something major goes wrong), then it's not remotely viable yet. It would be like the Victorians planning a space program. I.e. not only don't we know how to do it, we don't even know what our research priorities should be.

If we said "money's no object, we're going to have a moon colony 10 years from now", we'd end up with everyone dead because of something that wasn't even considered until it was too late.

And He-3 is just a meme. We don't have any technology which could make use of it, even if we did, it's not actually that much more abundant on the moon than on earth (not to anywhere near the extent that it's worth going all the way to the moon for it), and there's no particular reason to believe that He-3 fusion will *ever* be a useful energy source (i.e. it may well be "leapfrogged" by alternatives).

("If He-3 was important then we'd have a reason to mine space" is not evidence that it will ever be important. If you don't understand that, you need to start by researching the concept of self-awareness).

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>>7837577
Let the Chinese do it. They are planning to land on the far side and visit the alien bases.
Pic: Moon in color with rocks.

How do we know if the moon isn't full of rare metals

>>7839211
We know what is on the surface from optical analysis. We know less what is underneath.

Hmm, a reeeeally old manga (I think) had as a premise that the Moon was an old alien space station that was covered in rocks. Anyone remember which one this is?

>>7839098
>If we said "money's no object, we're going to have a moon colony 10 years from now", we'd end up with everyone dead because of something that wasn't even considered until it was too late.
I don't get why you'd say this.
Surely if we can make the ISS work without killing everyone then a moon colony would be even easier considering it has thins like soil and water.

>>7839211
You gotta dig, buddy. The only way, or else prospecting would be so much more easier on Earth.

>>7839098
>cheaper and safer to just build a centrifuge-type space station
No it wouldn't. You would need a monumental amount of resources to build one comfy enough for people to live on. It would probably be cheaper to erect a few small, livable domes on the moon.

Its viable that humans can live up there within the laws of physics. But the limiting factor is humans on Earth. If we don't the resources, energy, ethics or money to pump into it, it won't happen. We need to be convinced there is a tangable, material profit from colonizing the moon, because as good as "muh starstuff" makes you feel, it doesn't put food on the table.

>>7839098
>Cheaper and safer to just build a centrifuge-type space station in LEO.
How in the name of jesus christ is it easier to build a space station in orbit than to put some tents on the moon?

>>7839399

Because the Moon offers no real advantage over space but adds the problem of gravity.

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>2040's
>oil supplies dwindling/gone
>energy demand skyrockets
>moon base becomes economically feasible
>ExxonMobile (tm) presents the SpaceX (tm) LunarDragon (tm) Lunar Helium III Processing Facility (tm)
>mine, process He3 on moon
>send to Earth, sell for big energy dollars
>use moon base as cost-efficient staging area for deep space missions, both public and private
>make $trillions$

This is the future. Especially if NASA does all the leg work and develops asteroid mining technology/techniques in the 2020's and deep space tech/techniques to go to Mars in the 2030's.

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>>7839471

>2040's
>oil supplies dwindling

>>7839471
It will always be more cost-effective to build more wind turbines than to mine and ship helium from the moon.

>>7837577
Highly viable actually. Also, very easily done, very easily maintained, and needed greatly.

>tfw your were born 30 years too early to enjoy MoonX's live streaming vids of opening the latest habitable pod on the moon.

>>7839261
>Hmm, a reeeeally old manga (I think) had as a premise that the Moon was an old alien space station that was covered in rocks. Anyone remember which one this is?

Dr. Who? lol

IMO youre much better off building a huge city in orbit piece by piece than a huge city on the surface. Just mine and reprocess in the moon and lift it up to the city.

>>7839399
Hmm...
On the moonbase
>guys our life support broke, ok umm, youre ded
on the leo city
>guys our life support broke
to the escape pods, we will fly up engis to fix

>>7839536
Yeah but you can only make money once when you build a wind turbine.

You can make money over and over again if you sell people helium. Way better business option.

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>>7838044
Literally cannot be more ready for this. It's something that humanity simply HAS to achieve if we're ever to be more than a couple seconds of history on a random irrelevant rock in the Milky Way.

>>7838262
>Vast frequency ranges are today reserved space research. Build huge radio telescopes on the Moon and you can release billions of dollars worth of frequency bands. You can even create huge baselines with radio telescopes on the Moon and Earth.
Optical telescopes on the moon seems like a decent idea, too. All the advantages of a space telescope like the Hubble except it's firmly planted on a big rock and doesn't have to be chased down whilst in orbit for repairs and upgrades.

>>7837577
Not very
But, if we build one it had best be completely self sufficient
Because when the nuclear waste dump on the far side explodes ans the moon is propelled out of Earth orbit and out of the solar system, the moon base and colonists will be on their own

>>7839722
Even if humans colonize all space, they'll just gradually adapt to those worlds/colonies and cease being humans. Only humans from Earth will ever be true humanity.

>>7839783
I'll take that option over humanity going extinct without even leaving earth.

>>7839465
>problem of gravity
I wouldn't go so far as to say gravity is problem but the moon has several advantages to orbital stations such as easy access to soil and water, possibility of mining and construction of things like space elevators, space guns and mass drivers.

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>>7839783
>Only humans from Earth will ever be true humanity.

>implying humans will exist in their present form even a century from now.

>>7839662
Wouldn't you need a city's worth of infrastructure on the moon to build that?

>>7839677
>guys our life support broke
Why would we have one life support system for the entire colony?

>>7839854
Precisely. On top of this, it'd be idiotic to not design the base in a modular way.

>>7839850
>>implying humans will exist in their present form even a century from now.

Why would you think the teeming masses of people in "less developed" countries would be affected by whatever science-fiction sea-change you think the human race is on the brink of?

>>7839677
Dude the dinky lunar landers could escape the moon. A tennis ball launcher could probably do it. Life boats from the moon is perfectly feasible.

>>7839887
Really?
Whats the escape velocity of the moon?

>>7839892
~2km/s

>>7839892
1.47 mps

Honestly it would probably take 1,000 years to seriously get colonies there, but worth it. We really can't just magic our way to other planets without that stepping stone.

You could probably fly with simple jetpacks like no one's business up there. Would be cool.

At least use it as an Australia-tier reject penal colony.

>>7840017
>Honestly it would probably take 1,000 years to seriously get colonies there, but worth it.
I don't think it'd take that long. The #1 barrier is cost. If it were cheap you'd have people lining up willing to build/live in a moon colony.

As we've seen in the past decade making spaceflight affordable is absolutely something that can be achieved within the next decade.

>We really can't just magic our way to other planets without that stepping stone.
This is true and cannot be emphasized enough. Many complain that our tech is inadequate for colonies on the moon, mars, etc which may be true to some extent, but if we sit around and wait for the tech to happen, we'll never colonize space. Spaceflight drives spaceflight technology, not vice versa. We're aren't going to be able to develop jack shit if we sit on our asses down here on earth.

>>7839869
History.

Every advanced Hominidae has wiped out all lesser Hominidae that directly competed with them. The instant someone is better than everyone else, it is the decline of the ancestors/competitors.

>>7840034
>I don't think it'd take that long.

I could. People are more or less comfy with Earth and options for space travel are more limited than even the most elite military postings.

Unless there is some dramatic schism we really won't jettison ourselves there. We'd have to completely be fucked, Earth worse than the moon.

That would take a monumental amount of disharmony. Something the next say 20 or 100 years won't hold.

>>7840045
I disagree. There are so many people now that if something becomes available, no matter how daunting or crazy it may seem there will be hundreds or thousands out there willing to partake in it as long as it's affordable.

Not to go full Musk on you but remember that SpaceX is pushing for cheap, abundant, and eventually consumer-available spaceflight of all types. If they can manage that, things are going to change quickly and dramatically. With their current pace it's not hard to imagine them eventually building a sort of moon-bus, perhaps even as scaled-down test model of the MCT.

>>7839391
?
You just bring a couple asteroids back to orbit, or nuclear verne gun a million tons of steel up to orbit, then send the welders up to slap together habitats.

It really wouldn't even be that hard.

>>7840034
The thing is
The west is currently imploding, to the point where it probably won't even exist in 50-60 years

Yet it has always and only been the west who has gone exploring, or who has done this space exploration.

Maybe the chinks will be up to it in a decade or two, maybe not.

But as long as the marxists control the west, we won't be building anything. They prefer slow socialist stagnation into death.

>>7840076
China? lol. China will be fucked in a decade

The moon has an abundance of hydrogen and oxygen, both can be harvested for use as rocket fuel

The moon would make a great refueling station of sorts for forays deeper into the solar

Are space elevators viable?

>>7837693
Yeah right.
Hypothetically, if Selelne was really formed by a collision between Theia and Earth, then due to the lack of a significant molten core, the heavy elements 'could' be distributed closer to the surface enablng extraction in quantity.
Dont know where you get ayy llmao tech from??
>Rio Tinto Group embarked on their Mine of the Future initiative in 2008. From a control center in Perth, Rio Tinto employees operate autonomous mining equipment in Australia's remote but mineral rich Pilbara region. The autonomous mining vehicles reduce the footprint of the mining giant while improving productivity and vehicle utilization. As of June 2014, Rio Tinto's autonomous mining fleet reached the milestone of 200 million tons hauled. Rio Tinto also operate a number of autonomous blast hole drill rigs.

>Bingham Canyon Mine Located near Salt Lake City, Utah, the Bingham Canyon Mine (Kennecott Utah Copper/Rio Tinto) is one of the largest open pit mine in the world and one of the world's largest copper producers. In April 2013, the mine experienced a catastrophic landslide that halted much of the mine's operations. As part of the cleanup efforts and to improve safety, mine administrators turned to remote control excavator, dozers and teleremote blast hole drills to perform work on the highly unstable terrain areas. Robotic technology helped Kennecott to reduce the steeper, more dangerous areas of the slide to allow manned vehicles access for cleanup efforts.

Maybe its YOU that should read more rather than specialising and learning nothing?

>>7837671
that wasted fuel landing and taking off from the moon though.

>>7837588
>by "viable" you mean "pays for itself"
that's not the meaning of "viable", fgt pls

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>>7839661
>Dr. Who? lol
Nope. I vaguely recall a picture of someone in a foetal position on the spine on all the tankoubons. And it was translated into English.

>>7839662
>a huge city in orbit
It would not be inhabitable until you had enclosed the volume and filled it with water and air. To get to this point you would already need a city, a refinery and a mass launcher on the Moon.

And then, what would you do in that city, what would the purpose be?

>>7839726
>Optical telescopes on the moon seems like a decent idea, too.
Agreed. With 1/6 the gravity of Earth you could make truly gigantic telescopes on the Moon.

You could also use huge craters to make equally huge Arecibo-style radio telescopes. Place them on the eastern or western limb and you are in the radio shadow from the Earth and can do long baseline interferometry.

>>7840179
>Are space elevators viable?
From the Earth? Barely.
From the Moon? More likely though more conventional mass drivers would be simpler.

>>7837577
Too much work really because biological human meatsuits are annoying to constantly maintain but robots could manage them just fine.

>>7838367

>helium 3 and titanium mining.

Not untill we have a space elevator or spacial infraestructure, also the helium-3 on the moon weren't rather on too low levels? and its suposed "fusion powers" were never proven.

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>>7840281
Honestly takeoff from the moon is pretty easy, and with an engine like VASIMR that can go between high thrust and high isp and only needs hydrogen, you can make a pretty good tanker to do supply runs between surface and L2. As a matter of fact, this and building a good telescope are the only decent reasons for construction on the moon.

>>7838742
>look mom, I posted it again!

>>7838766
One thing to consider is that you can't orbit ships around the moon easily. In fact I believe that there are only five stable orbits.

>>7840073
This is a joke right

>>7838742
>Venus cloud cities are the superior option to the Moon or Mars.

With what purpose? You can't mine resources from the clouds which is the idea after all.

Fucking venufags...

>>7838742

And there's this faggot.

>>7841184
Honestly takeoff from the moon is pretty easy

So you've tried it?

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>>7837577
Mining shit is the only reason to be there. How about creating large shafts based on pic related but adding floor after floor while mining?

>>7837589
>le contrary man

>>7837577
We couldn't even do it here on earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

>>7841215
>So you've tried it?

We humans have, yes.

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>>7841241

just use a big fucking nuclear bomb to create a big empty space and fill it with things.

>Radiation probem=solved(yes you can clean it later)
>Space problem=solved
>investment problem=solved.

What are we waiting for?! Someone should nuke the moon ASAP!!!!

>>7841140
>also the helium-3 on the moon weren't rather on too low levels?
Not sure. The process of adsorption is rather plausible. However the samples returned from the Moon have been incorrectly stored so I doubt you can do any meaningful measurements on existing samples.

>>7841184
>engine like VASIMR
OK. So how is the testing coming along?

>>7841323
99% of users on /sci/ believe that the moon landing is a conspiracy, though.

>>7841315
I think the squabbling and management issues ha more to due with it's failure than anything else.
Besides not really what we're talking about.

It's quite possible, but unless the whole world is filled, which really, it is far from.

>>7837577
It's a pipe dream.

>>7841215
That's not a valid argument. It's about as bad as saying "oh so you've seeeen animals evolve? no??? I guess it's not trueeee"

>>7841433
I doubt that it's easy to do the math that's required to launch a rocket. If you're trying to say that launching a rocket off the moon is easy because there's a weaker gravitational pull then you're wrong. Not only gravity makes launching hard.

>>7841381
pretty sure 99% of those conspiracy guys are trolls

>>7841464
You know that we have computers that can automatically compute these things, right?

>>7841471
You are what you spend all day pretending to be, anon.

>>7841464
>Not only gravity makes launching hard.

I was wondering, then what else makes a launching hard that we don't face on Earth?

>>7841464
>If you're trying to say that launching a rocket off the moon is easy because there's a weaker gravitational pull then you're wrong. Not only gravity makes launching hard.
Let's hear it then friend, what's your magic explanation for why it's hard, and don't pull the control card on me because you know damn well that we can easily control a craft outside of the atmosphere.

>>7841497
Air resistance.
Ice freezing due to cryogenic fuel that can fall off and cause damage
Thunderstorms or strong winds

>>7841376
>>7841140
concentration is almost irrelevant.

you can have solar powered robots constantly scrapping the surface and processing out the He3.

>>7841511
Those are all reasons why it's harder to take off from Earth than from the moon.

>>7841511

>Air resistance.
>Ice freezing due to cryogenic fuel that can fall >off and cause damage
>Thunderstorms or strong winds

there are no winds nor clouds on the moon and freezing is not exactly a problem in space, I asked for the problems that would arise from launching things on the moon not on Earth.

>>7841525
Yeah until you account for the replacement parts the robots need, and the shipping costs both ways.

>>7841534
That's why you set up infrastructure (mining, manufacturing) on the moon.

>>7841539
Other than the fact that the moon doesn't have the necessary materials to sustain an entire industrial base, there is no way that this is cheaper than just setting up all of this on Earth.

>>7837693
Oh yes, i nearly forgot.....
>If used in conjunction with a mining facility on the moon, water or propellant could be exported back to the depot, further reducing the cost of propellant.

This was from a nasa report on propellant depots vs SLS.

And you think its ME who is the wannabe scientist? Your life is shit and always will be.

>>7840095
Lol no. Chinese are roaches, they just don't die. People based on "eat literally anything nutritious, work hard as fuck and study all you can" generally don't tend to experience total societal collapse. Even after the whole One Child policy, even after the culture revolution, EVEN AFTER the reappropriation by capitalistic hegemonic oligarchy. They are still blowing the fuck up.

Never ever underestimate China.

>>7841327

isnt that the premise of that awful time machine movie where they did that then blew up the entire moon and fucked the earth's gravity. then those monster things were running around earth

>>7841526
Whoops!

>>7841527
The conclusion is that it is easier to launch from the Moon. The moon landers were rather simple but efficient.

For launch people are rather considering alternatives such as linear accelerators. That saves fuel and uses electricity which hopefully is more abundant.

>>7841670
> linear accelerators
>uses electricity

Gauss guns you say? There are actually two things that will save money.

>SSTOs
>Space infraestructure..

If you can have a spaceship that can actually get into orbit with oinly his own engine and at the same you have refuelling stations orbiting around then you have all the ingredients needed to start doing space things.

Because once in orbit you can almost go anywhere with homan transfers.

>>7841647
It wasn't the premise, but yes in the terrible 2000s Time Machine movie, we accidentally the moon.

The "monsters" you mention are Morlocks, one of the two species that humanity evolved into (the other being the Eloi). The cause of the split had nothing to do with the moon blowing up though; that was added in the movie and isn't in the book at all. The cause of the divergence was the huge difference in lifestyle between the rich elite and the poor working class, where the rich evolved into the frail, childlike Eloi while the working class evolved into the burly, beast-like underdwelling Morlocks.

If you haven't read The Time Machine yet, you really should. Or at the very least, watch the 1960's Time Machine movie. Both shit all over the joke 2000s movie.

What kind of research could you do on the moon that you couldn't do on earth?

>>7841829
>gravity
>cosmic radiation
>rigolith


to name the first that comes to my mind.

>>7841140
>Not untill we have a space elevator or spacial infraestructure
Helium-3 is a stupid reason to colonize the moon (if we have the technology to use it, we also have the easier technology of D-D fusion, which produces He-3), but setting up a moon base is how we get infrastructure.

What we lack in low Earth orbit is raw materials. If there were some big asteroids there, we would have established productive bases on them decades ago, and we'd be moving out from there. All the raw material is far away or in the bottom of other gravity wells.

Launch from the moon is much less technically challenging and energy-intensive than launch from Earth. We could start with a reusable rocket and nuclear reactors. This could take as little as one launch from Earth, making fuel from the ice in polar craters (which also contains carbon and nitrogen compounds).

A rocket shipment from the lunar surface to LEO can carry a mass of cargo almost equal to its propellant load. To return the empty rocket from LEO to the lunar surface takes a load of propellant roughly quadruple its empty mass.

The forces of launch from the lunar surface are far more gentle than those of a launch from the Earth's surface. Reusability isn't even close to being the same challenge.

SpaceX's Merlin 1D vacuum upper stage engine, for instance, could manage a gross lift-off mass of about 60 tons by itself, on an unstaged vehicle. Payloads of 20 tons every week might be achieved, repeated for years, at the cost of a single mission. They don't have to all go to LEO, either. Propellant depots can be built in lunar orbit and at lagrange points as well.

There's no reason you have to limit yourself to one such lunar shuttle. Each one you send up could bring a thousand tons of material to LEO per year, and of course they'd be cheaper to copy than to build the first one. A nice feature is that when you launch the shuttle, it can go as an upper stage on a reusable lower stage, like SpaceX's.

At least we can all agree that a lunar colony makes more sense than a martian one. Right?

>>7841962
No. Mars has an atmosphere that is very valuable in industry, and a comprehensive set of elements. The total mass necessary is a problem, but in principle we could set up a truly self-sufficient colony on Mars. This will never happen on the moon, and "staging area" fantasies are also pretty stupid.

>>7841962
Mars makes to sense to terraform before setting up a colony.

>>7841195
>in fact I believe that there are only five stable orbits.

how many stable orbits does earth have?

>>7841969
Maybe it's wrong but I imagine a handful of smaller colonies coexisting with terraforming efforts. That way, by the time the terraforming has made enough change to make the masses seriously consider mars, there will be some initial infrastructure in place to serve as a landing pad and starting point.

>>7841967
>in principle we could set up a truly self-sufficient colony on Mars. This will never happen on the moon
The moon also has a "comprehensive set of elements". Some of them are just in shorter supply than on Mars.

There are lakes worth of water on the moon, trapped with other volatile elements underground and at the poles. People talk about mining helium from lunar soil, but there's far more hydrogen to be had. It's delivered the same way, and has a much greater tendency to chemically bond so it doesn't float off.

It's absolutely possible to start a self-sufficient colony on the moon.

>>7837577
possible, usable, expandable.

if we dont have enough time or society falls apart because of allah bombers we can send our best brains and bodies to space for longer human survival.

of course this will be the last resort or the last option for our tech to advance enough for faster space travel and exploration

Helium-3 is in large abundance on the moon so there is plenty of fuel for power generation plus coupled with the water on the moon I don't see why we don't have one already

>>7839056
Better to have a freeway on-ramp than a dirt road, anon.

>>7842087
Assuming we don't leapfrog to something better.

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>>7839211
Well we did bomb it to see what kind of shit would fly into the air, remember?

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>>7840039

>>7840039
Like when Europeans visited the rest of the world? It turned out far more economical and reasonable to keep them alive.

If you're trying to imply that the "direct competition" thing didn't apply, how would it apply now or in the near future? I'm pretty sure Liberians and Bangladeshis are never going to get in anyone's way of going to space or ascending to higher consciousness or whatever sci-fi shit you're jerking off to.

>>7841930
You could use rail guns to launch stuff off the moon. then you only need propellant for maneuvering and establishing orbits.

>>7839722
>A couple of seconds in history

What are you even talking about you pedophile? I'm 12 YEARS old so your argument is gook

>>7842476
You have to be 18+ to use this site.

>>7842486
Then you shouldn't have posted that.

>>7841930
>Helium-3 is a stupid reason to colonize the moon
Helium is useful for more than fusion such as cryogenics and for diving (important for offshore oil work). Today He is extracted from certain oil wells but we are running out of this.

>>7843545
Going to the moon for helium-4 is completely stupid. There's nobody who thinks that's a good idea.

Our helium supplies on Earth contain essentially no He-3. All of our He-3 comes from tritium decay, mostly as a byproduct of nuclear weapon maintenance. The tritium has to be made in nuclear reactors, from lithium. Lithium's not scarce, but the neutrons which turn it into tritium are precious and tightly controlled.

For every gram of He-3 we make on Earth, transmutation capacity must be used which could have produced 80 grams of weapon-grade plutonium from cheap natural or depleted uranium. Not only does that mean it's very expensive, but any production capacity must be watched closely for other uses.

This is what makes He-3 mining on the moon look like it might be reasonable.

If you're going to try an collect He-4 from lunar soil, you might as well just extract it from Earth's atmosphere.

>>7837577
>how viable is a colony inside your mother?

>>7842476
are u a qt loli from japan

>>7837577

Imagine power wasn't an issue

then how possible would it be?

>>7844411
Even if we do factor in power requirements I don't see it being a huge hurdle.

>>7841315
Biosphere 2 failed because they didn't finish curing the concrete and it was depleting the oxygen. IOW: what caused Biosphere 2 to fail wasn't some inherit problem that would make artificial biospheres impossible but, rather, a dumb mistake. Making your moon colonies into separate biospheres for redundancy will greatly reduce the odds of total catastrophic failure ruining everything.

>>7842476
underage b&

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>>7843545
we can always use fusors for He production. It'll be expensive but stable production.

Would be a good jumping off point for further exploration. Mass drivers or source elevators are more feasible on the moon. Then you can have craft equipped with ion engines, no need for fuckhueg rockets.

>>7844643
This

>>7844701
Th-thanks

>>7844743
welcome

>>7844600
He-4 is being generated constantly in the Earth's crust by radioactive decay. We find it in natural gas, sometimes as a large percentage , because it accumulates in the crust wherever there isn't a path to the surface.

Helium has only just recently become a prospecting target, because we stumbled on such good supplies of it while drilling for oil before.

People talking about helium shortages are just getting worried that our accidental supplies are running out, without seriously evaluating the prospects for deliberately seeking out helium.

Nobody's working that hard at finding more helium, as a commercial enterprise, because they know that finding it would drive the price far down. There are only very limited uses for helium, so if supplies are adequate, the price will be low.

>>7844598
>not recognizing 7 year old memes
how new are you

>>7843772
>Going to the moon for helium-4 is completely stupid.
Thankfully noone here suggested it. >>7843545
talked about He in general term, not a specific isotope.

The issue remains that we do need He in one form or another for more serious things than filling up children's balloons.

>>7845936
>People talking about helium shortages are just getting worried that our accidental supplies are running out, without seriously evaluating the prospects for deliberately seeking out helium.
Last I heard prospecting for He was considered way too expensive. Even when getting He as a byproduct from Texan oil wells it is expensive.

>because they know that finding it would drive the price far down.
A bit conspiratorical, hm?

>There are only very limited uses for helium
Limited but important. It is used in diving gas mixtures which is commercially very important. Also used in cryogenics such as for cooling superconducting coils, used in things from mining to hospitals.

Cost of LN2 is like for milk. Price for LHe is like fine wine if you have a large scale diving operations going like in the North Sea. In Japan LHe is very, very expensive.

>>7846398
>>Going to the moon for helium-4 is completely stupid.
>Thankfully noone here suggested it. >>7843545
>talked about He in general term, not a specific isotope.
Holy fuck, how dumb are you? He was talking about applications of helium such that He-4 would be sufficient. You don't get He-3 just to use it for things you could use He-4 for.

>>because they know that finding it would drive the price far down.
>A bit conspiratorical, hm?
This is how markets work. People trying to make money don't want to push prices down. There's currently a large supply of helium which can be sold at basically whatever price its controllers want. The only reason they have to keep the price high is the suspicion that this is the only good source we'll ever find.

If people go out and find another source, thereby demonstrating that other sources are there for the finding, they can expect the price to go way down.

You'd normally expect a high price of a commodity to have people out looking for ways to extract it, but when the price is high for purely artificial reasons, rather than there being some floor based on cost of extraction, then investing in new sources is too risky.

>>7847382
>He was talking about applications of helium such that He-4 would be sufficient. You don't get He-3 just to use it for things you could use He-4 for.
Sure. Again >>7843545 talked about He in general term, not a specific isotope. Only you are talking about using He2 for things you could use He-4 for. I am not sure why you have to invent this problem unless you enjoy making huge bonfires from your strawmen.

Let me take this slowly: on Earth we have a dwindling supply of He4 and only tiny amounts of He3 are made in reactors at an astronomical price.

On the Moon there are supposedly large amounts of He3. How much He4 there is I have not seen in this discussion or elsewhere for that matter. Still people have talked about tons of He3 so evidently they expect large quantities.

On Earth you can use He3 for most things that we now use He4 for. Sure there are some exceptions like dilution refrigerators that require both He3 and He4. For most things like cryogenic cooling you use whatever He isotope that is the cheapest.

>This is how markets work.
Your bizarre economic theory presumes mistakenly that the consumers cannot do anything as if this were a hydraulic empire. He is cheap in the US and in countries surrounding the North Sea. It is very expensive outside these areas including countries such as Japan. If Japan could secure a cheaper alternative they would. Much of their foreign policies revolve around accessibility to raw materials.

>>7848797
>Only you are talking about using He2 for things you could use He-4 for.
The guy I was responding to talked about using lunar helium for things He-4 is sufficient for. You either know this already, and are being a dick, or are incredibly fucking stupid.

>people have talked about tons of He3 so evidently they expect large quantities.
Tons of helium is not a large quantity. The world reserve is at something like 8 million tons. A few more tons per year from the moon wouldn't matter. That would only be a few tens of thousands of dollars worth. You'd need to be bringing back at least hundreds of thousands of tons of He-4 to have an impact on the Earth market.

Tons of He-3, on the other hand, *is* a large quantity. A gram of He-3 currently costs about as much as a ton of He-4.

>He is cheap in the US and in countries surrounding the North Sea. It is very expensive outside these areas including countries such as Japan.
What a completely fucking ridiculous claim. As if the Japanese can't buy American helium.