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Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

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Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#21

Post by nolok »

tambourine_man wrote: post #7

I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.

Especially since a Moon colony would make building and sending future stuff sooo much easier, a very big part of what we work on now and what costs us money (the big decider, whether we like it or not) is "how do we get that off of Earth and into space". If we could assemble on the Moon first, Mars and beyond would be much easier to reach.

And for almost everything that is not launching related (radiation, resources, ...) a Moon colony faces the same difficulties with better recovery possibilities in case of catastophic failure, so it's a better learning ground (I mean, if your food producing bio dome or whatever dies for some reason you probably want to be on the Moon with emergency supply very close rather than out there on Mars).

The only downside I see is that a Moon colony would not offer the same quality of "backup for civilization" as Mars would, and it's also a harder sell on the public and politician I think.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#22

Post by overcast »

nolok wrote: post #14
overcast wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more amazing is that they never learn. As if blasting us with more and more ads that take over your entire browser. Will somehow put everyone at ease. The advertising industry is the next big reboot on the web as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure what you expect them to learn. Only use "cleaner" ads ? It will pay less, ads don't pay much any more, you need the big, splashy, if-possible-exclusive-and-targeted ads to get money now. Offer subscriptions ? They already do that, and they publish quality original content, so it's not the case of journal-X publishing the same press release as everyone and complaining that people don't subscribe. At this…

People didn't start using ad blockers, because sites had a couple well placed ads. If everyone is blocking your ads, maybe it's time to change all those reasons you gave me for "how they work".

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#23

Post by nolok »

psyc wrote: post #20
nolok wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine how much crazier ads have been getting I would certainly argue the way this comment (and many others in a lot of threads about ads here or elsewhere) seems to imply that ads are at their worst ever. I mean either people forgot or are too young to remember, but in the 2000's alone ads had both their "pop up and sound and unclosable javascript spam" and their "flash everywhere turning your modern supe…

I was there, and I only started using ad blockers a couple of years ago. It is much, much, much worse now.

Different opinions then I guess.

I prefer a (collection of) ads that obfuscate the entire page I'm trying to read but doesn't bother me while I look at something else and happily let me close and go away than something that makes everything a hog and crash my browser randomly while I might not even see it because it's five tabs away in the footer of some website.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#24

Post by yulaow »

tambourine_man wrote: post #7

I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.

I think the 0-step should be a sort of treaty to decide which set of laws and jurisdiction should have a space colony on the moon. Not easily solvable

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#25

Post by munificent »

tambourine_man wrote: post #7

I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.

People way underestimate how far away Mars is. To give you a sense of scale, the settlers of Jamestown came from London. As the crow flies, that's about 3,790 miles.

If we treat that as equivalent to settling on Mars, then for them to settle on "the moon" would have been a mere 26 miles from London. Perhaps Canvey Island on the River Thames. If we can't manage settlements that close, we really aren't ready yet for the long voyage across the sea.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#26

Post by rothbardrand »

yulaow wrote: post #24
tambourine_man wrote: post #7

I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.

I think the 0-step should be a sort of treaty to decide which set of laws and jurisdiction should have a space colony on the moon. Not easily solvable

It wouldn't really be relevant. For why, read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

TLDR: The moon colony will be able to make its own rules and keep earth at bay.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#27

Post by adekok »

tambourine_man wrote: post #7

I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.

Mars is effectively a vacuum (for people purposes) anyways, just like the moon. And both are bone-dry, which means lots of static charges when you go outside.

The main difference is that Mars has sufficient weather that the dust is roundish, whereas the moon dust is composed of extremely sharp shards.

IMHO, if we can't make a go of it on the moon, we have no business going to Mars.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#28

Post by jfolkins »

rothbardrand wrote: post #26
yulaow wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the 0-step should be a sort of treaty to decide which set of laws and jurisdiction should have a space colony on the moon. Not easily solvable

It wouldn't really be relevant. For why, read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. TLDR: The moon colony will be able to make its own rules and keep earth at bay.

One of my all time favorite books.

I like how the power roles between the sexes on the moon are reversed too. The matriarch has all the power because women are scarce and they take on many husbands out of this need. They always hold the cards and culturally everyone accepts this.

Also, because the value of women is so high no man ever dares attack one less they be sent out an airlock. It is cultural justice. No trial. A man just knows that if he is seen assaulting a woman, he is dead. The community can't afford to lose a single female.

Plus with all the talk of the A.I. Armageddon the book plays right into that discussion.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#29

Post by nolok »

overcast wrote: post #22
nolok wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you expect them to learn. Only use "cleaner" ads ? It will pay less, ads don't pay much any more, you need the big, splashy, if-possible-exclusive-and-targeted ads to get money now. Offer subscriptions ? They already do that, and they publish quality original content, so it's not the case of journal-X publishing the same press release as everyone and complaining that people don't subscribe. At this…

People didn't start using ad blockers, because sites had a couple well placed ads. If everyone is blocking your ads, maybe it's time to change all those reasons you gave me for "how they work".

I think you misattributed or misundertood my intention here.

I am in now way arguing that those more and more terrible ads did not cause the surge in ad blocker usage, and what I said is not affected in any way by how many people are using ad blockers on NG.

Fact is, revenue per ad viewed has been crashing down for all type of ad.

A site like NG can either block their free access and force a subscribe (lose attention and name recognition), give it for free fully but remove incentive to subscribe (lose revenue), or change their ad type to more intrusive ad that pay more to compensate.

I'm sincerely open to discussion if you disagree, about what they could potentially do that isn't one of those three, but the revenue per ad viewed falling is not in their control, it's a global market trend since several years.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#30

Post by bhnmmhmd »

tambourine_man wrote: post #7

I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.

Although the Moon is much closer and "right there" for us, it's subject to numerous meteoric incidents, some of which are disastrous enough to wipe out any settlement we set up there.

Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. This fact alone reduces available surface for settlements to only half of the Moon.

While the Moon could be a temporary backup plan, in the long-term, you're going to need to terraform a planet and make a suitable atmosphere, both of which are not possible to do to the Moon.

Edit: Thanks to the commentators below who mentioned that while the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, most of its surface does indeed receive light from the Sun.

Only one question though: If that is true, then why do they call it "the dark side of the Moon"? (Honest question)

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