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Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#21

Post by CSSer »

danparsonson wrote: post #4
deafpolygon wrote: post #3

One one hand, that's really cool. ON the other, leave the moon alone?

Worried about disturbing the ecosystem?

The moon is about 1/4th the size of the Earth, or about as wide as the United States. The moon also significantly impacts our tides here on Earth. Now, the optimist in me would say there's no way little old humanity could manage to find a way to screw that up. The pessimist in me notes that in roughly a hundred years we've managed to push our planet to the brink of ecological disaster, so to answer your question: yes, a little bit (but not the ecosystem you're referencing).

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#22

Post by boc »

mongol wrote: post #9
danparsonson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worried about disturbing the ecosystem?

It will become so ugly once exploitation starts. You know the pristine look of a field with new snow? To compare with once there are footsteps and tire tracks everywhere? The moon's beautiful undisturbed dust will become an ugly mess and look like garbage.

There’s always Mars

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#23

Post by boc »

mongol wrote: post #9
danparsonson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worried about disturbing the ecosystem?

It will become so ugly once exploitation starts. You know the pristine look of a field with new snow? To compare with once there are footsteps and tire tracks everywhere? The moon's beautiful undisturbed dust will become an ugly mess and look like garbage.

There’s always Mars.

Or Montana.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#24

Post by gambiting »

mongol wrote: post #9
danparsonson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worried about disturbing the ecosystem?

It will become so ugly once exploitation starts. You know the pristine look of a field with new snow? To compare with once there are footsteps and tire tracks everywhere? The moon's beautiful undisturbed dust will become an ugly mess and look like garbage.

I think you might be underestimating how large the moon is. Also moon is receiving thousands of meteorite impacts every day, it's hardly undisturbed. It's not some unchanging museum exhibit - it's an always changing planetary body.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#25

Post by jiggawatts »

gnarbarian wrote: post #12
hammyhavoc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what exactly?

prison mining colony. but seriously, it could be used as a manufacturing and industrial hub for deep space operations like asteroid mining. think about it like this. if we can manufacture things on the moon we can launch things for almost nothing into both earth orbit and the outer solar system due to how the orbital mechanics work. this means we can build a million probes and send them all over the solar system, man…

Turtles all the way down.

“Why do we need a space station?”

“As practice for getting to the Moon!”

“What can we do on the Moon?”

“Build spaceships for getting to the asteroid belt!”

“Why do we need to get to the asteroid belt?”

“So we can make components for the Mars colonies!”

“Why do we need a Mars colony?”

…

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#26

Post by usgroup »

"But there is water there. And two new studies—one Chinese, the other American—suggest that lunar soil may have a good deal more water in it than modern space scientists previously believed. It’s still very, very dry; NASA’sArtemis program is looking for ice in shadowed craters near the moon’s south pole, and mission managers should not change those plans."

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#27

Post by SanderNL »

jiggawatts wrote: post #25
gnarbarian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

prison mining colony. but seriously, it could be used as a manufacturing and industrial hub for deep space operations like asteroid mining. think about it like this. if we can manufacture things on the moon we can launch things for almost nothing into both earth orbit and the outer solar system due to how the orbital mechanics work. this means we can build a million probes and send them all over the solar system, man…

Turtles all the way down. “Why do we need a space station?” “As practice for getting to the Moon!” “What can we do on the Moon?” “Build spaceships for getting to the asteroid belt!” “Why do we need to get to the asteroid belt?” “So we can make components for the Mars colonies!” “Why do we need a Mars colony?” …

Why do we need to do anything?

We are the grey goo of the universe. Expansion is our thing.

Re: Vast new stores of water reported on the moon

#30

Post by nathancahill »

jiggawatts wrote: post #25
gnarbarian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

prison mining colony. but seriously, it could be used as a manufacturing and industrial hub for deep space operations like asteroid mining. think about it like this. if we can manufacture things on the moon we can launch things for almost nothing into both earth orbit and the outer solar system due to how the orbital mechanics work. this means we can build a million probes and send them all over the solar system, man…

Turtles all the way down. “Why do we need a space station?” “As practice for getting to the Moon!” “What can we do on the Moon?” “Build spaceships for getting to the asteroid belt!” “Why do we need to get to the asteroid belt?” “So we can make components for the Mars colonies!” “Why do we need a Mars colony?” …

If you look at it that way, you can use the same logic here on Earth. Why do you go to work in the morning?

I know how these question chains go, I have a young son.

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