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[Creaca]

Aliens? Stephen Hawking? Please Barbarossa, stay on topic~~

[Vester]

I never knew you were cold-hearted enough to blow up a man and his wheelchair.

...

Shoot, how did you know I was secretly an alien?

[SeaBee]

I'm afraid of aliens, too! I want them to be all Star Trek, but they're more likely to be all [insert relativistic weapon system] and annihilate us without even saying goodbye. Not real good movie material!

Or they'd all be too simple for space travel.

I want to find some space monsters, though, that we can tame to pull ships through space. Yeah. Like the Doctor Who episode with the star whale thing.

[Neruz]

Pretty much. Also, why would you have to return containers? You can make new ones on the Moon.

You want to set up factories on the Moon...

If you honestly cannot see the gigantic problems with that concept, then we have nothing further to discuss.

[Grakelin]

Please share insight as to the problems with setting up factories on the Moon? The lack of gravity might actually open up new possibilities for us.

[Acanthus117]

I guess the sheer difficulty of getting raw materials up there is one thing.

[Grakelin]

Yeah, too bad there are no minerals on the moon. Or that we didn't shoot some with us in our shuttle container.

[Pillow_Killer]

You both fail. hard. We dont know about minerals on moon. Yes, we fucking dont. We never prospected.
Moon has no gravity? Seriously? You're stupid, F for "You failed life."

[Vester]

Yes, because knowing about the moon is so important to life.

[Acanthus117]

Well, I am sorry for saying that getting fuel, metals, and all the bare necessities for sustaining life (food, water, OXYGEN) is gonna be a massive undertaking to even get funding. I mean, developing suitable spacecraft, not to mention a closed system that can feed people is quite daunting. Face it, even making routine supply routes to feed the people will be difficult.

(On people, I don't think we can truly make true automated factories. With our current tech level, there still needs to be a human element.)

[Neruz]

Oh god, now you want to mine the moon? You have any idea how fucking expensive that would be? Clearly not, you just suggested it.

[Grakelin]

I sense trolling in the form of one who murders pillows.

[Neruz]

You're the one who suggesting mining the moon would be a cost-effective solution to the problem of, well, mining the moon.

[ChairmanPoo]

Wasn't Bruce Lee the one who was asked by a student how he could make his kicks stronger and he got for an answer "kick harder"?

[Eagleon]

Oh god, now you want to mine the moon? You have any idea how fucking expensive that would be? Clearly not, you just suggested it.

It's not really that preposterous. Currently the engineering hasn't been done to support it, but it's well within the realms of scientifically 'possible', and at the very least, it would be an excellent place for a drop-off site for mines on Near-Earth Orbit objects.

Look up solar furnaces, ilmenite oxygen production, and vacuum refining. A critical part of most metal production is degassing low-quality metal slag to produce higher concentration ingots that will not burn or transition to other minerals. The moon and space in general provides an excellent place for this - vacuum degassing is expensive but effective, and in space it'd be extremely cheap. More, a solar furnace could take advantage of the vacuum's insulation properties - the only heat loss would be through the crucible into the ground, and from IR emission, which is minimal compared to what you get due to contact with air and other materials. The solution of -not- retrieving cargo containers sent to earth is also practical, particularly if those containers are composed of valuable materials themselves such as titanium. The escape velocity of the moon is low enough (roughly a fifth of earth's) that a mag-rail launch system is practical, especially for non-time-critical freight. It's also an excellent start for a larger facility. The first company or government that makes the investment of an automated production facility on the moon that is self-maintaining (something that is very possible with current science, mind you not current engineering) is going to have a lot of power and money once they cover the initial debt.

In short, don't be so damned quick to shoot down ideas based on "OMG SPACE IS BIG" without thinking about them first