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[The Architect]

Remember not to oversimplify the problems with robotic refinement and fabrication. Remember that everything must be fully automated due to the seconds it would take corrective signals to reach the moon.

Also time estimates like "5 years" are not only arbitrary but in this case insane. It usually takes longer than that to put up and furnish a building on the surface of the earth (with anything other than studs, drywall, and plywood), where direct human interaction is possible and extreme conditions don't adversely affect your work. Added on top of this are huge problems with power. As pointed out above, our battery technology is pretty pathetic. Modern battery tech is much better than the example cited above, but we would still see a virtual shutdown 50% of the time.

I had no idea of the raw materials available on the moon. If that is all true, then over a period of decades it might be possible to convert enough naturally occurring compounds into enough raw materials to fabricate a self-sustaining facility, using aluminum to shield the site from cosmic bombardment.

It's important to remember that the main problems in space are related to cosmic bombardment, both in subatomic radioactive form and in the form of particulate matter traveling at high speed.

Another huge problem to consider is that any large-scale smelting and fabrication you do will be in a zero- or low-pressure, low-gravity environment. Considering that your construction would need to be used to create a pressurized environment for humans, the logistics become much more problematic. You would need to ship a pressurized work environment to the moon to avoid this problem, basically a hub that could be used to construct modules to add onto itself.

Of course once you really got going (if ever) things would speed up exponentially as the scale of production increased. But let's not kid ourselves that such a thing would happen within a decade.

[Eagleon]

Getting metal out of the moon is definitely a non-trivial problem. The question in this case is more of energy for any and all reactions, and reagent materials for chemical production. Compared to that, automation of it all is almost straight forward

We really do know very little about what's available on the surface besides what we can tell from orbit, which is very vague, and what we've physically recovered is a lot less than most geologists would like. But the reason Earth is so abundant in the diverse minerals we use for refining is because of how dynamic its conditions are through history. The moon is basically tectonically inert (although I wonder about what else might have made it close to the surface during the cooling phase), and there's no atmosphere or flowing water to cause that kind of wear. Everything is weathered almost exclusively by solar energy. It's like a worn old photograph of the extremely ancient event that created the thing.

What I'm wondering is if we might be able to recover some of the materials from impact craters, especially on the far side, which is completely covered in them. On earth it would be utterly pointless unless it had happened very recently, but without an atmosphere or moisture, metal-rich asteroids could be buried relatively close to the surface, deep enough to be protected completely from the energy of the sun. Since there's very little weathering going on for the crater rims and geology, that might also simplify narrowing down where to dig for the object.

I haven't heard this discussed anywhere, and I wonder if it's been considered.

[sneakey pete]

By the time you go to the effort of making an automated set of machines that can make a colony ready for you when you arrive, you might as well just make the machines do the mining/whatever that you want done up there and not bother sending humans at all.

[Nadaka]

Getting metal out of the moon is definitely a non-trivial problem. The question in this case is more of energy for any and all reactions, and reagent materials for chemical production. Compared to that, automation of it all is almost straight forward

We really do know very little about what's available on the surface besides what we can tell from orbit, which is very vague, and what we've physically recovered is a lot less than most geologists would like. But the reason Earth is so abundant in the diverse minerals we use for refining is because of how dynamic its conditions are through history. The moon is basically tectonically inert (although I wonder about what else might have made it close to the surface during the cooling phase), and there's no atmosphere or flowing water to cause that kind of wear. Everything is weathered almost exclusively by solar energy. It's like a worn old photograph of the extremely ancient event that created the thing.

What I'm wondering is if we might be able to recover some of the materials from impact craters, especially on the far side, which is completely covered in them. On earth it would be utterly pointless unless it had happened very recently, but without an atmosphere or moisture, metal-rich asteroids could be buried relatively close to the surface, deep enough to be protected completely from the energy of the sun. Since there's very little weathering going on for the crater rims and geology, that might also simplify narrowing down where to dig for the object.

I haven't heard this discussed anywhere, and I wonder if it's been considered.

Energy is definitely a big problem. With something as small as what we can realistically get to the moon, it would be lucky to process more than a few kg of material a day. Traditional chemical processing will be impractical because reagents would have to produced and recycled, making the amount of machinery and process steps impractical. Its one reason I suggested centrifugal processing as it does not rely on complex chemical reactions. Though again, it takes more time and more energy.

Without an atmosphere that slows them down, most impactors would be completely pulverized. Though identifying the impact locations of iron rich meteors could allow you to identify more iron rich regolith.

[qwertyuiopas]

Then it comes back to Why?

As already discussed, material transfer would make moon mining less cost eficient, to the point that it might not be at all profitable.

{Warning: pure opinion ahead. Back out if you don't feel like reading something with few facts backing it(though few opposing it as well)}
However, the moon has lower gravity, making it a very good launch point for larger potential space ships, so you would likely construct hundreds of square kilometers of spaceports on the moon, and many fully automated mining areas, with the mining all being used for space ship construction, and the human habitation would be for the occasional maintainence worker, plenty of scientists, some tourists, and massive quantities of space travelers heading off to other planets. Closer to the curent timeframe, the moon would be less useful, as space travel would bo so uncommon that it would be more effective to launch from the earth, but if/when/as interplanetary travel becomes more common than once or twice a year...

[Nadaka]

Why send people to the moon?

1: mining and smelting of basic raw materials is only one step. To go all the way would require the ability for the automated machines on the moon to reproduce themselves completely and then launch a successful mission to mars and beyond.

2: Because its there. And there is value in the spirit of exploration and discovery.

3: Working in the computer industry, I know that there is nothing more important than an off-site backup for critical systems. I can not think of any system more critical than human beings. Sooner or later, something bad will happen to earth. If we have not moved on, we will be extinct. In the long term humanity must colonize the solar system, and eventually the stars.

[AtomicPaperclip]

Fully colonized? Within our lifetimes? Australia isn't even fully colonized! And while that place is more dangerous than the Moon we have enough of a head-start to make up for it.

What does that tell you about Australia?

I haven't read the previous 8 pages so forgive me if this is a repeat

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Fully colonized? Within our lifetimes? Australia isn't even fully colonized! And while that place is more dangerous than the Moon we have enough of a head-start to make up for it.

What does that tell you about Australia?

I haven't read the previous 8 pages so forgive me if this is a repeat

In Australia, even the trees want to kill you, and there are snakes in the sea..
The moon just doesn't have an atmosphere.

[zchris13]

processing of iron and aluminum for the structural components of a colony.

Did you just say oxide of aluminum? Isn't that BAUXITE!!! MAGMA-PROOF, YAY!!!!!

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

processing of iron and aluminum for the structural components of a colony.

Did you just say oxide of aluminum? Isn't that BAUXITE!!! MAGMA-PROOF, YAY!!!!!

There is no magma on the moon D:

[Eagleon]

Not on the moon. That would be impossible since then it would be lava. Inside the moon at a very deep level, though It's apparently a possibility

</smartass>

[zchris13]

But then we can import bauxite for our fortresses from the moon outpost.

[The Architect]

Damn straight. It's not about whether magma is on the moon (which it can't be, since the moon isn't insulated by an atmosphere and doesn't really absorb solar heat, causing it to be chilled for x years).

It's about whether our giant elf-crushing magma-spewing mechas can be constructed from moon bauxite.

[Il Palazzo]

But then we can import bauxite for our fortresses from the moon outpost.

Why not import magma to the Moon?

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

But then we can import bauxite for our fortresses from the moon outpost.

Why not import magma to the Moon?

We'd need a lot of screw pumps.