The Lunar Deeps

[jordan179]

Inspired by, and also posted to as a comment, johncwright's post at http://johncwright.livejournal.com/281607.html

====While the very first Lunar outposts will be surface huts with some regolith tossed on top for radiation shielding, I think it's almost inevitable that within 100-200 years from now

Comments

[bdunbar]

When you get beyond the limitations of the near future, the prospects for not only a useful and profitable, but also a humanly and artistically magnificent, colonization of Earth's Moon are bright ones.

Well, yes.

But we live in the near future and it looks like such an uphill slog to get to the destination.

[jordan179]

Eh, I didn't even postulate any major scientific or engineering breakthroughs, save for my throwaway line about "antimatter charges." Everything else could be done with today's technology, or with technology we're no more than 10-20 years from developing. Chances are when we really do it, it will be even more awesome.

[sianmink]

Yeah the main limitation is energy generation and storage, and we're making a lot of advances in that lately. There's a lot that you can do with effectively unlimited energy, self-sustainable lunar colony is one of those things.

[prester_scott]

I still say your timeline is off in a lot of areas. Politically if not technologically.

I am not sure it'd be a great idea to grow dinosaurs even if we could.

I'm also not sure how you deal with the long-term effects of the lower gravity on the human body, including the growth of children. Or, for that matter, on animals and plants.

[jordan179]

I still say your timeline is off in a lot of areas. Politically if not technologically.

What do you expect to prevent large-scale Lunar colonization over a period of one or two centuries? Note that this is a timescale over which the issue of whether the American Republicans or Democrats support or oppose such endeavors is irrelevant: within merely a century virtually every Great and Regional Power on Earth will have either public or private agencies capable of transporting humans and cargo over such a relatively short hop, and hence the only way to prevent Lunar colonization from happening would be for the dominant Powers to declare Luna off-limits to human activities and enforce this prohibition at gunpoint.

Such may certainly happen, of course, but it does not appear likely.

I am not sure it'd be a great idea to grow dinosaurs even if we could.Why? What bad thing -- so bad that it is far worse than the benefits and pleasures to be derived from studying living dinosaurs -- is at all likely to happen in consequence of growing

[prester_scott]

What do you expect to prevent large-scale Lunar colonization over a period of one or two centuries?

Countless politicians will complain that money spent on space is money that should be spent on earthly and human needs; and given that the practice of socialism tends to impoverish people to the point that the socialist belief in the economy as a zero-sum game tends to come true, they may be right. NASA is going to cling to space exploration for the rest of this century at least, which is going to keep the pace slow. And colonization of the Moon won't take place in one magnificent swoop like you're describing, it will have fits and starts, and its non-impressiveness (like that of the International Space Station) will make it easier to look at the whole thing as vain.

the benefits and pleasures to be derived from studying living dinosaurs

I don't see a whole lot of benefit to it. Think of the enormous costs of such an enterprise.

I rather suspect that over a hundred to two hundred years, we'd discover a solution.I think that, if

Life on Luna

[jordan179]

What do you expect to prevent large-scale Lunar colonization over a period of one or two centuries?

Countless politicians will complain that money spent on space is money that should be spent on earthly and human needs; and given that the practice of socialism tends to impoverish people to the point that the socialist belief in the economy as a zero-sum game tends to come true, they may be right.

While I'm certain that plenty of politicians in plenty of countries will refuse to fund space ventures, and lots of socialists will regard the economy as a zero-sum game, I don't see how this will prevent large-scale Lunar colonization over the next 100-200 years! Some countries, corporations and other agencies will choose to launch colonization efforts, and some will succeed. Those who opt out of colonization simply won't have as much say over the future destiny of the Moon, that's all.

NASA is going to cling to space exploration for the rest of this century at least, which is going to keep the pace slow.NASA is going to be able to

[sianmink]

What could drive colonization of the moon?

I'm thinking, jumping-off point for *very* lucrative mining of the asteroid belt. Launch and processing facilities on Luna, foundry ships at the belt processing the ore, all you need is a space elevator to make moving the material from orbit to Earth's surface in a reasonably cost-effective manner.

Or you know, screw those whose souls are weighted down by the gravity well, and build some O-Neil colonies. Sieg ZEON!

[nimlotbradamant]

This is incredibly cool. Would you be terribly offended if I pinched bits of your ideas (me being scientifically-challenged, woe) for my misguided attempt at a lunar space-opera magnumopus?

[jordan179]

Quite the contrary: I'd be honored.

Incidentally, I must confess that I originally got some of my ideas on this from Robert A. Heinlein ("The Menace from Earth") and Poul Anderson (his last space opera universe, the one where the Solar System goes totally navel-gazing cybersphere but the imaginative people colonize other star systems -- his Luna started off like that, before the AI's took over).