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The Race to Develop the Moon

newyorker.com

1–10 of 103 posts

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#2
The article mentions a 12-minute landing video, but naive Googling doesn't turn anything up except a bunch of much shorter videos (less than 3 minutes). Does anyone have a link to the full thing?

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#3
All the moonwalkers were men, all were American, all but one were Boy Scouts, and almost all listened to country-and-Western music on their way to the moon

These writers just can't help themselves. It's part of their hive-mind checklist.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#6
post #4

Wouldn't it be easier to hunt for resources deeper in Earth's crust?

Depends on what you want it for.

For use on earth probably but there's also a lot of unexplored potential surface and near surface resources on the moon where going deeper and deeper into the earth is quite expensive and dangerous in it's own right.

For use in space especially consumables like water it makes a lot of sense to find them in space as much as possible because the rocket equation is a royal pain in the ass from the ground. Starting in space drastically increases the amount of mass we could move around. Eventually we could build the bulk of the structure in space and only lift up hard to manufacture stuff like life support and computer systems to install in space (and eventually, hopefully, be able to build everything off earth but there's a LOT of industrial base to build up before things like ICs can be manufactured off world).

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#8
post #3

All the moonwalkers were men, all were American, all but one were Boy Scouts, and almost all listened to country-and-Western music on their way to the moon These writers just can't help themselves. It's part of their hive-mind checklist.

The New Yorker is trash, the real crime is that people take it seriously.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#9
post #3

All the moonwalkers were men, all were American, all but one were Boy Scouts, and almost all listened to country-and-Western music on their way to the moon These writers just can't help themselves. It's part of their hive-mind checklist.

It's a lengthy article and that's your takeaway? Seems rather tangential, doesn't it? I wouldn't have even noticed the remark if you hadn't pointed it out.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#10
post #6
post #4

Wouldn't it be easier to hunt for resources deeper in Earth's crust?

Depends on what you want it for. For use on earth probably but there's also a lot of unexplored potential surface and near surface resources on the moon where going deeper and deeper into the earth is quite expensive and dangerous in it's own right. For use in space especially consumables like water it makes a lot of sense to find them in space as much as possible because the rocket equation is a royal pain in the as…

For silicon based things, the moon would make sense for manufacturers. Is there enough solar energy for something like that? Specifically for smelting and refinement? What materials would need to be shipped in for manufacture?
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