The Race to Develop the Moon • Hacker News Board

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#41

Post by azernik » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #29

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!

Not very deep at all - meteoroid protection requires only about 15-20cm of regolith, and radiation protection requires about 2m. Easily doable.

https://space.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol4/human.htm...

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#42

Post by bsamuels » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #4

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

Probably yes. There's a few things the moon has going for it:

- it's in a vacuum

- it has low gravity

- abundant solar energy without the uncertainty of weather

So many different kinds of industrial manufacturing processes are hampered by the presence of oxygen/air; in a vacuum you could make super pure alloys. Low gravity means you can use smaller, less powerful machinery to do the same work. The solar thing is kinda self-explanatory.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#43

Post by username223 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

hsnewman wrote: post #32

amelius wrote: post #4

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

I've heard that the real resource is the heavy hydrogen contained in the first millimeters of the crust as a result of the bombardment of solar winds. If we could use it for fusion power, the heavy hydrogen contained on the moon would power the world nearly forever.

> If we could use it for fusion power...

That's a big if: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bot...

I don't expect to see a practical fusion reactor on Earth within my lifetime, much less on the moon. Just imagine the cost of building a Tokamak there.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#44

Post by bluGill » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #6

amelius wrote: 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…

ICs are generally small and light - they would be among the last things to make in space. I expect we would start with metals: steel is very important for building, and you need a lot of it, so making that in space gets the rocket equation strongly on your side. Rocket fuel is another one because you can cheat the rocket equation if you don't have to bring all your fuel with you. As manufacturing and space cities progress more and more industry will be brought local.

I expect the main reason to target ICs is so you can deal with loss of earth type disasters. This depends of course, if zero-g is an advantage for making ICs production will move quickly. If space needs a lot of things that ICs are a byproduct of they might do it, for example a lot of solar panels would be needed in space, if there is an easy change to make ICs on the same lines of course they do it. Of course my knowledge of IC manufacturing limited, my guess is the above doesn't apply but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#45

Post by sctb » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

wowzap wrote: post #8

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.

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

We'd prefer to hear some of your more substantive thoughts, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#46

Post by hsnewman » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

username223 wrote: post #43

hsnewman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that the real resource is the heavy hydrogen contained in the first millimeters of the crust as a result of the bombardment of solar winds. If we could use it for fusion power, the heavy hydrogen contained on the moon would power the world nearly forever.

> If we could use it for fusion power... That's a big if: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bot... I don't expect to see a practical fusion reactor on Earth within my lifetime, much less on the moon. Just imagine the cost of building a Tokamak there.

I think the plan is to mine the crust and bring it to the earth for fusion.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#47

Post by neogodless » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

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.

And what, NO mention of the Corvettes most of them drove?!

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#48

Post by Consultant32452 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #12

Consultant32452 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a new form of white supremacy, where the article author goes out of their way to mention the white race in association with accomplishments. I find the trend to be extremely creepy. Edit: clarifying I mean the article author

Are you referring to the article with this comment?

Yes, the article.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#49

Post by Consultant32452 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #13

Consultant32452 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a new form of white supremacy, where the article author goes out of their way to mention the white race in association with accomplishments. I find the trend to be extremely creepy. Edit: clarifying I mean the article author

To be fair the author was the one who mentioned it first. I tend to agree with the GP here. The lack diversity cred of a bunch of dudes 60yr ago is not really worth mentioning. It has no bearing on the content of the article and only serves as a distraction from the main subject. Considering who the author[0] is I don't think this was an attempt to "point out the accomplishments of the white race" or something like t…

I was also agreeing with the GP. The author of the article is the one exhibiting white supremacist behavior by mentioning it in the article when it's unnecessary.

Re: The Race to Develop the Moon

#50

Post by username223 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

hsnewman wrote: post #46

username223 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we could use it for fusion power... That's a big if: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bot... I don't expect to see a practical fusion reactor on Earth within my lifetime, much less on the moon. Just imagine the cost of building a Tokamak there.

I think the plan is to mine the crust and bring it to the earth for fusion.

That seems like a lot of work to get deuterium and tritium on Earth. If mining them from the moon is really the cheapest option, I am even less optimistic about fusion.