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[Il Palazzo]

If I designed a moon colony, I'd put it underground, with pressurized steel tunnels. Solar arrays on the surface would provide energy constantly (the same side of the moon is always facing the sun.) It would help with shielding people from solar radiation (as I believe Palazzo said.)

Oh, you must've misunderstood Palazzo's words.

[Lord Dakoth]

(the same side of the moon is always facing the sun.)

I think your confused there mate. the same side of the moon always faces us, not the sun.

Erp.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Btw, with the Moon always facing the Earth, all that would be needed for a Moon->Earth transportation system (with more or less pinpoint accuracy) is a magnetic acceleration railway a few kilometers in length. Think one of those odd rollercoaster-like thingys, but on a bigger scale and with the track just ending instead of circling around to the exit booth. Solar panels provide power, and cargo can be shipped once a month without trouble. Of course, that's assuming you don't make a whole lot of them solar arrays all over the surface.

[zchris13]

Yeah.  On the moon, you never have to worry about radio communications dropping out every night, because you aren't facing the earth.

You have to worry about more extreme causes.

[mainiac]

I expect to see the moon colonized in our lifetimes, not for the He3, but for the iron and silicon ("moondust" is silicon+oxygen).  With little more then iron, one can create a very large space station at the L4 or L5 lagrange points between the earth and the moon.  Simply rotate the station to produce artificial gravity and viola, you have an environment better then anything on earth.  Abundant sunlight for electricity generation and plant growth, whatever weather you want year round, no natural disasters, no population pressures and the ability to go on recreational EVA's in zero gees.  None of this requires any fancy technology for anything other then first getting people into space.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, it would actually be cheaper and safer to live in space.  Because the moon is a source of abundant supplies of iron and silicon, it would  be possible for space colonization to proceed at a nearly exponential growth rate.  There's enough of the moon to easily make a space station home for every human being alive many times over.  From the time humanity builds its first O'Neil cylinder, it might be less then a couple decades before most people are living in space.

One day, people will look back at the 20th and 21st century and wonder why we couldn't understand that space colonization was so easy.

[andrea]

warning: post probably misinformed, little research, highly idealistic.

One day, people will look back at the 20th and 21st century and wonder why we couldn't understand that space colonization was so easy.

because we couldn't see farther than our mobile phone /MP3.
And probably several other, useless, reasons.

We have the technology, we had it in 1970 already. The problem here is that after cold war, people just forgot that there is anything beyond satellites. And maybe they forgot even them.

The space agencies are underfunded. Very underfunded. Why? they are losing money. So? I thought that was the whole point of government owned space agencies? Act when there is no immediate profit to be done? If they are made for profit, they may as well be owned by private citizens, who would at least try to improve technology for profit.
Space is a long term investment . Which will probably turn out to be the best ever made should we ever take the risk.

[ajar]

lag on the moon will always be several seconds, no matter what infrastructure you build. it is about light speed. moon is far.

move to a moon colony... if i had the chance, i think i would do it.

You can probably teleport your fricking lag into oblivion. Have you considered about that yet?

[andrea]

actually, no. How would i do such a thing?

[ajar]

I read an article about how teleportation might speed up computers. It's currently not possible to use teleportation in computing or utilise it in network connections, but maybe in 50 years the scientists will figure out something. If you could have a teleporter you wouldn't have to send anything physical over a distance and thus be limited by the speed of light.

[Dwarf]

I read an article about how teleportation might speed up computers. It's currently not possible to use teleportation in computing or utilise it in network connections, but maybe in 50 years the scientists will figure out something. If you could have a teleporter you wouldn't have to send anything physical over a distance and thus be limited by the speed of light.

I think you mean quantum computing. Don't even think about using quantum teleportation principles on humans or other objects, quantums are quantums and atoms are atoms.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Quantums are not atoms, but they are 1)physical and 2)countable. Therefore, they can carry information. If you can cause a sequence of signals in a receiver using quantum teleportation, you will solve the problem of internet on Mars.

[Dwarf]

Quantums are not atoms, but they are 1)physical and 2)countable. Therefore, they can carry information. If you can cause a sequence of signals in a receiver using quantum teleportation, you will solve the problem of internet on Mars.

But still, quantum teleportation does not, I repeat not make 'normal' teleportation possible because quantums are something entirely different. For all we know of quantum teleportation, teleportion of atomar objects may be possible, but not with the principles of quantum teleportation.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Conduct a process that will explode an atom into quantums, and teleport them in such a way that they recombine into the atom. This physics discussion is about as meaningless as that sentence.

Back to space colonization. If we speak of the Moon colonies, I can see it happening in the next few decades providing the crisis abates, but even then they'll be mostly mining, engineering, and scientific outposts.

What is really needed for such short-distance interplanetary travel is a form of propulsion that would utilize magnetic fields. Ion drives won't provide enough thrust, and I don't know of any other engine system working off electricity alone.

[DJ]

That's like pushing actual paper through fax machine cables.

[Twiggie]

quanta, people, quanta