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Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

news.nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#41

Post by mFixman »

nolok wrote: post #13
kin wrote: post #2

Unrelated to the article, but WOW did anyone else see the giant full view height ad video at the top? I have ad blocker off for NatGeo. It's followed by a giant banner. I can't imagine how much crazier ads have been getting and most of us don't even notice 'cause we have ad blocker.

> 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…

Remember pop-unders? I don't miss closing my browser and finding a dozen ads hiding under the window.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#42

Post by drostie »

jgh wrote: post #32
bhnmmhmd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

> Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. I'm no astronomer but the moon is tidally locked to the earth and not the sun, which means that the moon should have sunrises/sunsets...

Yeah, it does. The real concern is that the moon-day is a full month long and there is no atmosphere transferring heat; any permanent structures on the surface will get very very cold during those two weeks in the dark. If we don't solve this with suitable solar-charged batteries we would need multiple outposts -- say 4 of them dotted around the Moon -- with colonists rotating through the cities to stay in the Sun. But that's also kind of a non-starter because the distance between those cities is something akin to the distance between Denver and New York City -- it's not impossible but it's also a nontrivial drive to be doing every week just to remain in the sunshine.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#43

Post by nolok »

mFixman wrote: post #41
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…

Remember pop-unders? I don't miss closing my browser and finding a dozen ads hiding under the window.

Of course in that time you had no tab indicator to nicely tell you who was playing sound.

Nothing quite like those search that took you on sketchy websites and their porn pop under blasting orgasmic noises in your home / office while you frantically try to find who does that (and then close everything because it's taking too long).

"The good old time", as they say.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#44

Post by Arnavion »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #30
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 te…

>If that is true, then why do they call it "the dark side of the Moon"?

It's the side we can't see from Earth. It's dark as in unreachable by line of sight or light, eg radio communication, from Earth. "Far side of the moon" is the preferred term but "dark side" is popular and persists.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#45

Post by glenstein »

munificent wrote: post #25
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 th…

This is interesting, because I think both you and parent commenter identify an interesting principle when thinking about space colonization.

Maybe at the end of the day, the dumb, brute cost of traversing an extreme distance is a tougher problem than colonizing someplace nearby thats vastly less habitable. One problem is conceptually simpler but extremely costly, the other is conceivably lest costly overall despite being way more complicated.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#47

Post by sqeaky »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #30
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 te…

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

This doesn't refer to sunlight, it refers to radio communications. The back of the Moon, relative to Earth cannot receive any kind of signal we can send without some kind of artificial relay. Because the moon it tidally locked with the Earth the same side always faces us.

So the back side is always dark to our radio even though it has about a 28 earth long "day". Any (non-polar) spot on the Moon gets about 14 Earth days of light and then another 14 of darkness, corresponding with the phases of the moon we see here.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#48

Post by antaviana »

omellet wrote: post #31
bhnmmhmd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

It's tidally locked, so you couldn't you put the settlement on the Earth-facing side and not have to worry as much about meteors?

Well, it's like holding a shield of a radius of only 6,371 km with an arm of 384,400 km long.

Or to put it in human terms, like holding a shield of 1.25 cm of radius with your arm of 75 cm.

It will not protect you really very much.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#49

Post by quotha »

munificent wrote: post #25
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 th…

Maybe you are right, 50 million miles is not "far away" to me.

Re: Water Found Deep Inside the Moon

#50

Post by holtalanm »

omellet wrote: post #31
bhnmmhmd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

It's tidally locked, so you couldn't you put the settlement on the Earth-facing side and not have to worry as much about meteors?

I was thinking the same thing. Earth will shield the moon on the Earth-side, mostly.
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