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The Race to Develop the Moon

newyorker.com

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Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#21

Post by hutzlibu »

stcredzero wrote: post #14
all2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In a place with lab quality vacuum instead of an atmosphere, at that distance from the sun, I suspect you could use direct focused sunlight for smelting. Not sure if that would be more practical than electric furnaces, though. It would be more efficient, but the setup is less flexible.

You can also do solar sintering here on earth:

https://kayserworks.com/#/798817030644/

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#22

Post by godelmachine »

TuringNYC wrote: post #18
Bizarro wrote: 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.

This is a New Yorker article, so it has a literary bent in terms of details and descriptions typical of long-form publication. That is what New Yorker subscribers want. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-form_journalism For straight-to-the-science, Wikipedia or other publications are better. There is a publication for most major preferences. I used to love the detail of The New Yorker when i was single and had l…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#23

Post by kowdermeister »

daveslash wrote: post #7

Today-I-Learned that the Apollo astronauts had to pay for their own bed while going to The Moon. "they earned eight dollars a day, minus a fee for a bed on the spacecraft"

You might like this travel voucher reimbursement to the trip to the moon :)

https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/758126112287383552

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#24

Post by rtkwe »

stcredzero wrote: post #14
all2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In a place with lab quality vacuum instead of an atmosphere, at that distance from the sun, I suspect you could use direct focused sunlight for smelting. Not sure if that would be more practical than electric furnaces, though. It would be more efficient, but the setup is less flexible.

The surface of the moon itself has a tiny bit of atmosphere so I'm not sure you could do it there.

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.htm...

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#25

Post by jandrese »

eesmith wrote: post #19

Article: "Watching the footage of Neil Armstrong’s first steps, it takes a moment for one’s eyes to make sense of the low-resolution image" As I understand it, the problem wasn't the video feed, it was the re-transmission for the global TV audience. The original video was then lost. Quoting from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1200161/Apol... : > Nasa believed they might contain electronic information…

I think that statement is describing post-Apollo NASA when the agency lost focus and got pulled in 50 different directions by political interests.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#26

Post by 52-6F-62 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #16
52-6F-62 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Seems rather tangential, doesn't it? I think that's the GP's point. It adds nothing relevant to the article but the author still mentions it for reasons which the GP is speculating about.

In communications that's typically referred to as an aside. It would be a bit of information the author wants the reader to be aware of (for any number of reasons including context of either the subject or the author's perspective), but doesn't want to make the focus of the messaging. It's a common device in writing.

I implied it was tangential (and consequentially implied: counterproductive) to inflate the relevance of an aside.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#27

Post by sidcool »

India is launching their second moon probe in July, expected to land on Moon by September. China has also ramped up its efforts. US has declared its intentions of landing humans on moon by 2030. I am sure India and China will have similar capabilities till 2030 as well.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#28

Post by reaperducer »

kowdermeister wrote: post #23
daveslash wrote: post #7

Today-I-Learned that the Apollo astronauts had to pay for their own bed while going to The Moon. "they earned eight dollars a day, minus a fee for a bed on the spacecraft"

You might like this travel voucher reimbursement to the trip to the moon :) https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/758126112287383552

I don't see anything in there about mileage in the space vehicle, only on the ground. The oldest IRS rate I could find is from 1980: 22¢/mile. So for 205,000 miles the reimbursement would be $45,100. Or $138,724.09 in today's money.

(Yes, I know the mileage isn't reimbursable because government transportation was provided.)

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#29

Post by joering2 »

If you want to understand why there will never be a Moon base on the Moon, all you have to do is to take a look at any photo of the Moon itself - without atmosphere the planet is being been bombarded so often that you would have to go underground. Deep underground. Too deep underground!

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#30

Post by all2 »

rtkwe wrote: post #20
all2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's more that it's a very sensitive process with a lot of very delicate steps that'll be hard to setup. To get it started there will be some challenges adapting the processes to the lower gravity I'm sure and if it's not being manufactured on the moon transitioning the machines to microgravity is an even larger challenge. It's also just that those are some of the lighter components so building them on earth and laun…

Part of what I was thinking of was solar panels. It makes sense (to me) to have large stuff like that manufactured on site.
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