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A newly discovered moon tunnel

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#151

Post by jawbone3 »

kobeya wrote: post #138
r00fus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to link above the treaty prohibits all sovereign claims. However, getting there can be made into a reasonable barrier to competition. Sure you can also exploit the moon, but how are you going to get there?

If you think getting to the Moon is hard, where many resources are surface extractable, look into what it takes to mine certain ores on Earth kilometers below ground in remote regions.

One of the things it takes is piracy being severely restricted, but by the usual interpretations of the space traty, thatsfine in space.

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#152

Post by narag »

kobeya wrote: post #132
DougWebb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like it must be incorrect. Life on earth evolved in the oceans, so the oceans had to exist for eons before life evolved and the eons it took for life to evolve photosynthesis and produce significant amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere. If what you're saying is correct, then the earth either started out with much more water than it has now, or the hydrogen escaped a lot more slowly than I'd expect it to.

I've been in planetary science and never encountered this theory. I have a default position of skepticism towards it for that reason, but I don't have a reason to object on the face of it. The question is not where the oceans came from (that's settled -- it came out of the mantle as the Earth cooled, and ultimately before that from cometary impact), but how the oceans did not boil or evaporate off like they did every…

but how the oceans did not boil or evaporate off like they did everywhere else.

You forgot freeze.

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#153

Post by jlebrech »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #72
kirillkh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we have no hope of ever engineering Mars to have enough air for us to breath?

A Martian atmosphere (not sure about a lunar atmosphere) would be lost on a timescale of tens of millions of years. That's very quick in cosmological timescales, but slow enough that any human effort to create or replenish it could be very successful.

we could also use the resources on mars or the moon more sparingly, making dome bases would provide that.

we could also bore into those tunnels and put caps on the hole afterward, have some of those channel light into those tunnels too.

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#154

Post by jlebrech »

interfixus wrote: post #133

> It might even contain ice or water As a boy in the early seventies, reading Tintin: Destination Moon , I was always put off by the episode with the underground cave full of slippery ice. That was clearly an outdated view of lunar conditions, which somewhat dented my suspense of disbelief. Maybe I needn't have worried.

the rocket looked silly too, but it turns out that's how we'll do it.

elon musk may we bald with a goatee too by then.

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#156

Post by lagadu »

interfixus wrote: post #133

> It might even contain ice or water As a boy in the early seventies, reading Tintin: Destination Moon , I was always put off by the episode with the underground cave full of slippery ice. That was clearly an outdated view of lunar conditions, which somewhat dented my suspense of disbelief. Maybe I needn't have worried.

Hergé was just a man ahead of his time.

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#157

Post by clort »

rbanffy wrote: post #96
moomin wrote: post #3

Sounds like we need to send a probe or ten to the Moon. Who knows what’s down there? (Although the answer is going to be “some rocks” as far as most non-astronomers are concerned.)

Probably ice. Ice that falls into the entrance and then sublimates has a good chance of moving to perpetual darkness regions and to stay there. Factor a couple billion years and you probably will have a decent amount. Now imagine there is some simple biology happening from the time the Moon had some atmosphere, in caves sealed billions of years ago.

somebody already did image that..

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lotus_Caves

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#158

Post by skgoa »

cgb223 wrote: post #66
space_fountain wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry meant to expand more. The fact that the moon has such lower gravity than the earth means it's a lot cheaper in theory to get stuff from the surface of the moon to orbit than from earth

How much energy does it take to get stuff from the earth to the moon though? Is it that much less than leaving earths gravity all together?

The point would be that the stuff we would use to explore/colonize the solar system would be made on the Moon with a relatively low investment in stuff having to be send there to set up the base and mining/production process. Ideally only humans themselves and a few personal items would be send up from Earth, with everything else having been produced in orbit.

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#159

Post by gpderetta »

spdustin wrote: post #55
samstave wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did the comets get the water they impacted on earth?

Water is formed naturally when the oxygen created by the fusion process in stars combines with the hydrogen from those same stars, often after a supernova explosion. Water is fairly abundant in the universe. As are alcohols.

"Humanoids are the galaxy’s way of trying to get rid of all that alcohol."

-- Ian Banks

Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel

#160

Post by rbanffy »

clort wrote: post #157
rbanffy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably ice. Ice that falls into the entrance and then sublimates has a good chance of moving to perpetual darkness regions and to stay there. Factor a couple billion years and you probably will have a decent amount. Now imagine there is some simple biology happening from the time the Moon had some atmosphere, in caves sealed billions of years ago.

somebody already did image that.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lotus_Caves

I wasn't thinking about complex lifeforms, as there isn't enough energy in those dark caves to power anything complicated, but some rock-eaters could have thrived there.

It's remarkable the Moon has so many interesting stories waiting to be uncovered.

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