The caves would protect astronauts from meteorite strikes and cosmic radiation.
  • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    3 months ago

    Oh god yeah perfect I really wanna go live on a tiny fucking rock with no atmosphere and no life and extremely low gravity which is constantly being pelted with uninhibited meteors

    Maybe some day it would be feasible to have some kind of space outpost on the moon so that space ships can be built without having to worry about the enormous hurdle of reaching escape velocity, but I don’t see how that day is any time in the next few hundred years

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
      10·
      3 months ago

      I mean China is planning a permanent manned moon base by 2030, and I can certainly see things progressing rapidly from there. I can guarantee you that there will be no lack of people signing up to go and work on the moon.

      • booty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        I’m just not seeing the utility. How many things can you do on the moon that you can’t do more effectively, safely, and conveniently on an orbital station? Like, study moon rocks pretty much, that’s it.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
          7·
          3 months ago

          The long term advantage I see is that it would be much easier to build a space elevator on the moon. And if industry can be established there, then you could build the components on the moon, and send them up to orbit. This opens up the rest of the solar system and massive scale space construction that’s simply not possible when doing launches from the Earth. Also, a moon base could be largely self sufficient once it’s bootstrapped since we know there’s water on the moon. I personally would love to see humanity create a serious outpost that’s off planet.

        • knfrmity@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          The thing with general scientific research is that there isn’t any immediate utility, but you never know what incredible things will be discovered.

          In the case of a research station on the moon, there are opportunities for investigation into how the moon and solar system formed, the history of elements present on the moon. Telescopes can be built that can be larger than space based ones and with better imaging potential than earth based ones due to the lack of atmosphere. We can learn how to live far away from earth and improve in-situ resource utilization capabilities, such as water and rocket fuel synthesis and how to grow food. More longer term, as yet untested ground to orbit concepts can be tested more easily than on earth, like space elevators, launch loops, and orbital rings.

  • Idliketothinkimsmart@lemmygrad.ml
    6·
    3 months ago

    I vote we send capitalists there with space suits, but the catch is that they have a months worth of living supplies only. Let’s see how innovative they become.