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[Telgin]

I've already invented plants that don't need sunlight

How about air?  Or soil nutrients? 

Unless you don't literally mean planting stuff in the moon's soil... but if you're doing it indoors in a farm environment you can simulate sunlight anyway.

now that I think about it, sending a few million to the moon / mars wouldn't even really make a dent in our Billions,
we're screwed,

Yep.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

projections aim that by 2050 there will be around 22 billion people.

No. Wrong. Completely and totally wrong. There will never be 22 billion people living on Earth. The moderate projection for 2050 is 9 billion, and that's when the population is going to start leveling off.

[Starver]

I want a Moon Base so that I can order books and things from Amazon.luna.sol and get them here in my secret base on Charon that little bit quicker.

Actually, we need a number of things (and I'm sure I've said as so in another thread, recently...  Maybe it wasn't this particular forum, though).  Earth-orbit habitation, with both LEO and Geostationary/Geosynchronous presence if we don't have Space Elevators, yet and can just stick with the latter (but then we also have 'counterweight' bases).  Then Moon-orbit habitation, although Selenosynchronous orbits might be a problem, for various reasons) which could actually be of a Very Low Moon Orbit nature if we're feeling adventurous (but wouldn't help with the trans-lunar transfer, any, due to the need to build up/bleed off 'horizontal' velocity, even while the height change isn't so much... in fact, it might make it significantly harder to coordinate[1]).

Moon-surface habitation will not be as good for the human body as Earth (or Mars) habitation, for normal biology, but it will be better than nothing and most of the jury-rigged methods used in freefall habitations can be adapted to assist.

The big problems are radiation/etc.  There's problems at LEO.  There are problems at Geosynchronous/stationary heights.  In lunar orbit you'd basically have to build up shielding from scratch.  On the moon?  Well, you can dig...  And send material (either alongside more traditionally usefully processed material or as part of pre-processed material that you're finding it best to separate in zero-G anyway) in order to paste around the stations (or the 'lifeboat'/shelter sections of such stations) to create/augment their protective layers.  Easier to get that stuff from the moon.

Of course, when we've got the asteroid belt under our... ahem... belt, then the prospect of hauling asteroids around could price out of the market the "from the 1/6th g well of gravity" moon for equivalent materials.  With big enough ones being hollowed out (and any less-useful stuff pasted onto the outside) to create viably shielded residences, although I think they'd just do that out there in the belt to create pirate coves mining colonies.


When it comes to "how long to get back to Earth", I think that's a red herring.  Antarctic bases are self-sufficient.  The doctors/dentists/plumbers/ double up on research duties, and researchers have at least some training in doctoring/dentistry/plumbing, in general.  If there's a health problem in LEO, say (in times past) on the Shuttle[2], they'd be looking at aborting the mission early and bringing them back.  But that's like a patrol boat off of the coast of your nation.  Compare and contrast with what happens in ships in the middle of the ocean.  You make do.  And sometimes making do is not enough for the individual.  Or, indeed, the team.  (c.f. Scott's expedition to the Antarctic...  perhaps foolhardy, for a number of reasons, and some might say pointless given its lack of success against the Norwegians, but without trying there's no doing...  Unless you're Yoda.)

There will be deaths in space.  So far, deaths in space, and various related ones, have been full-blown accidents[3], and those will still happen...  While we do not need to become actually blasé about them, it is a mistake to throw the anchors on every time it 'something' happens.  Medical emergencies can be planned for and the very best provision made, in case the very best attempts to prevent them coming up in the first place have been unsuccesful.

Anyway, I say we need to be elsewhere than Earth.  Eggs, baskets.  Nuff said.  (A 'civil war' throughout the colonies and homeland of the solar system is a negative thing that could happen, but at least we tried.)


[1] Although I could see spinning space-tether technology being used...  But without the magnetic-field/solar-powered-current re-boosting/retarding technologies that Earthly-orbitting transfer tethers would use you'd need some actual reaction mass to adjust and compensate for the gravitational potential transferred in and out of the system.

[2] What's the old story?  American space pioneer shows his Russian opposite number around the Shuttle mock-up and shows him the fancy defibrillator and medical equipment, specially adapted with straps and things to work in zero-G, etc...  "And we spent a lot of money making sure it would work".  Russian: "We only ever send healthy people into space!"

[3] Decided to look it up.  According to the source I'm looking at, officially "space deaths" total: Seven deaths post-launch, three deaths through atmospheric loss, seven deaths through re-entry disintegration, one parachute failure.  This does not include training flights or the three initial Apollo deaths during that take-off rehearsal.  I thought there was an additional death through loss of atmosphere during re-entry, but I can't match that with the list of all Russian deaths I have.

[Flying Dice]

(and despite Flying Dice's insinuations, the pharmaceutical industry HAS produced many results).

What I said was pretty clear: After years of research and billions of dollars, we don't have cures for many types of cancer or HIV/AIDS. I never said or implied anything beyond that. What I DID imply was that there are avenues of research and expansion that would be greatly aided by a moonbase, and that we have put essentially nothing into that line of development, as opposed to the massive amounts of money and time spent on the things you brought up. A lunar base is the key to intrasolar development and exploration, both for the possibilities with fusion, and because it is much less expensive to assemble things in orbit or on the moon than it is to assemble them on earth and boost them out of our gravity well. Without a moonbase as a seed, we can't really set up power generation, mining, and manufacturing operations, which essentially means no viable extraterrestrial expansion, ever.



This isn't about "How will this usage of money, resources, and time make my life better", it is about "How will this usage of money, resources, and time help protect the human race from extinction and allow us to expand into the solar system" opening up new avenues of research, resource collection, habitation, etc. I'm a bit reluctant to say that it is a much more selfless goal than pursuing things that will benefit us, in our lifetimes, but it is. 

[Valid_Dark]

I don't know where I heard the 22 billion numbers and never thought to question it, now that I looked it up though I guess you're right.

and ya, plants that don't need sunlight still need co2 and water and soil nutrients,
I guess we could plant giant indoor forests and periodically let the oxygen out to create an atmosphere.

and I have a newspaper in my room from the early 2000's where the front page is a giant article about the space elevator and how they were starting construction on it.  To my knowledge the idea has since been abandoned.

or why build a biosphere above ground when you can go dorf status and dig a underground fortress on the moon.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[2] What's the old story?  American space pioneer shows his Russian opposite number around the Shuttle mock-up and shows him the fancy defibrillator and medical equipment, specially adapted with straps and things to work in zero-G, etc...  "And we spent a lot of money making sure it would work".  Russian: "We only ever send healthy people into space!"

a better story is "NASA Spent $12 Million Pen that could write in space, While the Russians just use pencils"

thats not really true though, the "space pen" cost 2 million dollars to develop, was not government or NASA funded, and is used by both Americans and Russians in space.

[Luke_Prowler]

As much as a moon base would be cool, doesn't it remind anyone else of when Obama tried to get a national railway built?

[nenjin]

Mmhmm. Except the railway had larger tangible benefits to the country, was more doable and had a positive environmental impact.

And it was dead before the first tracks were even laid.

[Eagleon]

My question is why, instead of putting a hut on the moon and shipping someone out there to hopefully survive in it, we don't invest the extra money required for robotics equipment capable of building a much larger automated base? It would teach us much more about what we need to sustain the power, heating, and maintenance needs for a human-operated base, without actually risking human lives. It'd also enable researchers to rent out a rover, for instance, and do their research without buying a ticket. Then when it comes time for it, designs would exist to adapt and do asteroid mining reliably and efficiently, or explore Mars and Titan for colonization without guesswork.

I get the human presence factor, I get wanting to have a stronger foothold in the solar system so that a supervolcano or whatever doesn't just wipe us out, but the inhospitable hut in frontier-land method is a bit like getting reactions for a movie from a test-audience with a power-point presentation.

[DrPoo]

Fuck socialism and capitalism, fuck red and blue, lets make a party that solely focuses on getting shit into space, shaping soceity to only be there for getting shit into space.

[LordBucket]

A Base on the Moon

19°58'29.57"N 21°11'38.30"E

[Starver]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[2] What's the old story?  American space pioneer shows his Russian opposite number around the Shuttle mock-up and shows him the fancy defibrillator and medical equipment, specially adapted with straps and things to work in zero-G, etc...  "And we spent a lot of money making sure it would work".  Russian: "We only ever send healthy people into space!"

a better story is "NASA Spent $12 Million Pen that could write in space, While the Russians just use pencils"

I know that old story too, but I was talking about health, so pens and pencils didn't seem so relevant.

And it's quite possibly as not exactly true.  Having talked with some space professionals (had a bit of a sidelong dealing with the business in the early '90s... well, we were the sidelong dealing to them, I think they were more the star attractions (NPI) to us...) it's very much possible that they and fishermen and old wives have a common sense of verbal heritage.

And I used to have a 'space pen'.  Probably still have it, somewhere, unless it was one of the countless pens I've left somewhere, rather than the countless geegaws bits of my life that are currently lying, unsorted and uncatalogued, in the freeform storeroom that should be the main bedroom.  (To anyone who reads my OCD-ish posts about orderly fortresses or grammar, you'd be shocked to see how I organise my physical life!)  Whoops, is that a tangent I just took, off subject?

[Tellemurius]

Really, you think funding for a moon base will break the bank? Please look at nasa's funding and look at HIV funding.

[Criptfeind]

And then look at military spending.

[kaijyuu]

And then look at military spending.

Idea!


Convert the military (the entire thing) into the Space Military! Like the normal military, only in space.

There's all the funding you need. Justify everything under "national security."

[Tellemurius]

And then look at military spending.

Idea!


Convert the military (the entire thing) into the Space Military! Like the normal military, only in space.

There's all the funding you need. Justify everything under "national security."

Oh god this reminds me of Nationstates