Merged: Jestblaze's Thoughts

[jestblaze]

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years. Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough. What are your ideas for the moon?

[Gawdzilla]

New Botany Bay.

[Crossbow]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years. Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough. What are your ideas for the moon?

Are you serious?

It will be quite impossible to extend to the atmosphere of the Earth so much that the Moon would have the same atmosphere as does the Earth. And besides, even if such a thing could be done, then there would be so much parasitic drag on the Moon that it would crash into the Earth in very short order.

If you are serious, then I think that you need to more carefully evaluate your ideas for Moon colonization.

[Halfcentaur]

If gravity holds the atmosphere around the earth, then extending that gravity to the moon doesn't sound healthy.

[steve s]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply...

The only way you're going to make a dent in the population density of earth is to ferry billions of people to the moon, which is impossible for the foreseeable future. Just sending a few dozen or few hundred ain't gonna do it.

Quote:

My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted

Squeezing a billion people into the ISS is going to be difficult.

Quote:

The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon,

If the earth's atmosphere were 250,000 miles thick, the atmospheric pressure at the earth's surface would be staggering. Congrats, you just made the earth uninhabitable for all the people who were left behind.

Steve S

[Lamuella]

There's a lot to talk about here, but let me start with this:

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough. What are your ideas for the moon?

I think you are underestimating how far away the moon is. Depending on where it is in its orbit, the moon is between 362,000 and 405,000 kilometres away from the Earth. To put that in perspective, that's about 30 times the diameter of the Earth. An atmosphere that extended from the Earth to where the moon is at its closest point would have a volume of 198 septillion(198,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) cubic metres. Even adding the mass of the oceans and the ice caps to that of the air, that would be a pretty low pressure atmosphere to stretch all the way out there. How do you propose keeping it in place?

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years. Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough. What are your ideas for the moon?

Imagine placing an apple and a grape on a billiard table about 5 feet apart. The apple is the earth and the grape is the moon. The earth's atmosphere is represented by the skin on the apple. You propose to expand the apple skin to enclose the grape...

I have an alternative proposal: Build habitats for excess population on uninhabitable parts of earth instead. Deserts, for example, or even the sea floor. It would be stupidly expensive, but not anything like as expensive as the moon.

Alternatively, sit back and watch the birthrate dropping.

[Beelzebuddy]

WE LIKE THE MOON, 'cause it is close to us.

I've actually spent multiple minutes trying and failing to come up with a sufficiently witty glib response, but I can't. Jestblaze has shot straight past simply being wrong into what is this I don't even territory. Congratulations, sir.

Since the OP does ask us what our plans would be, would anyone mind a hijack into a hard science fiction lunar colonization discussion? We've got a fair population of posters with solid engineering backgrounds and hard-ons for space, so it needn't stray too far from plausible.

I suppose the most vital need of any moon base would be power. What with it being in space and all and efficient fusion still not possible, solar should work well enough. Does the moon have correct resources to manufacture some form of solar cell locally?

[RobRoy]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals.

What kind of land are you talking about being in short supply? There are literally millions of acres of undeveloped and underdeveloped land in the US alone. How to best develop the land is an open question with lots of interesting answers.

Quote:

Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years.

There are two very basic issues with developing a sustainable lunar colony: materials and water. Lifting any kind of material into space is extremely expensive. IIRC, the current cost is around $10,000 per pound. Lifting enough material to build a biodome for a sustainable colony would be, under current costs, outrageously expensive. Private industry, spurred on by entrepreneurs and some government subsidized programs, is attempting to overcome these issues, and bring the cost of moving basic materials down to a reasonable level, but we’re not there yet.

Water is the other problem. Back in 2009 NASA said they had found a “significant” amount. But their definition and a lunar colony’s is vastly different. I believe they found a few gallons frozen on the moon, which was impressive given that there was debate over any water being present. Water would be key to developing and maintaining a lunar colony.

This doesn’t even bring into question the issues of heat, food, maintenance, etc. None of this even begins to address the effects of sustained low-gravity on the human body, which generally causes bone-loss and other fun problems, all of which have to be solved in order to make colonization practical.

Quote:

Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough.

I think that goes a bit beyond “wacky”. I don’t want to offend you, but deliberately melting the polar ice caps would cause a loss of coastal lands on such a vast scale (not to mention property and weather concerns) that it would be counter-productive. Current rising seas are causing all kinds of issues all on their own. The deliberate melting of polar caps would be nothing short of catastrophic. Not to mention extending the Earth’s atmosphere by a quarter-million miles seems nothing short of impossible. Our atmosphere, for all practical purposes, is only about 75 miles.

You’d have better luck building a Dyson sphere than extending the Earth’s atmosphere enough to encompass the moon.

Quote:

What are your ideas for the moon?

Continued encouragement of private industry to bear the burden of developing technologies that reduce the cost of lifting materials into space. Continued development of genetic crops specifically geared to production in low-gravity with high yields. Increased development in sustainable energy technology. It would also help if there was financial impetus to colonize beyond the Earth. Enough incentive in that direction would spur growth, even if it wasn't initially a sustainable lunar colony.

[sts60]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest.

You say we need to expand due to land and popluation pressures. That means moving people off the Earth in numbers large enough to relieve that pressure.

But you can't make room on Earth by moving people off-planet. You simply can't, and I say that as an avid enthusiast of manned space exploration.

The costs to simply lift a signficant portion of Earth's population into space, even if they did nothing other than die immediately*, would be staggering. And that's not even getting them into orbit, let alone to the Moon.

My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon.

OK. You want to relieve the pressure on room and resources on Earth, so let's say you need room for even a tenth of the population - very roughly on the order of a billion people.

All the wealth ever accumulated by human civilization, even if you counted it every time any of it changed hands, would not suffice to lift accommodations for that many people to the Moon, let alone to build or operate same.

You may also want to ponder that the real Biodome struggled mightily to keep a handful of people reasonably healthy for, what, a couple of years - and that was with significant resupply.

We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted

Why do you want to destroy ("crash") the ISS?

Let's assume you meant "move and land the ISS on the Moon". That would almost certainly destroy it, and in any case it's completely unsuited for use on the Moon even if you could somehow land it there intact - which in itself would be absurdly expensive.

And pointless, too. The ISS accommodates a handful of people and itself requires regular resupply.

but that was built so fast with international support

No. The ISS took decades to build, going through numerous start-overs in its design, and the international partners darn near came to blows over design and funding decisions.

i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years.

Probably. It would accommodate a small number of people and would require regular resupply for the forseeable future. That does good for science and resource exploitation purposes, but does nothing to solve the problem you mention.

Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere.

Congratulations; you've just relieved some of the population pressure by drowning hundreds of millions of people in coastal areas. When you melt the ice caps, you get water, not direct conversion to vapor.

Even if you did, it's water vapor, not atmosphere. It may be good for your skin, but your lungs can't use it. To electrolyze the oxygen out would require, yes, a staggering amount of energy, making your resource problem far worse, and none of it would make a difference anyway.

The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon,

That is impossible.

But let's suppose it was. Congratulations; you've solved your problem completely by killing everyone on Earth under, literally, crushingly high pressure. I hope the folks on the Moon base stocked up on Doritos before this scheme is implemented.

what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere.

The Moon won't hold an atmosphere; it will just leak away. If you had basically unlmited power and money, you could probably figure out a way to liberate enough oxygen and nitrogen from the Moon itself to generate and replenish some sort of thin atmosphere. But that is not even remotely realistic, just conceivable.

I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough.

Well, there's also the little problem that if you somehow extended the Earth's atmosphere to the Moon, drag would quickly cause it to spiral in and smash into the Earth. The people on Earth wouldn't mind because you'd already suffocated and crushed them, but the folks on your lunar outpost - well, they wouldn't mind the impact either as they would have been incinerated by drag heating on the way in.

What are your ideas for the moon?

Explore it, settle it gradually, use its resources. Just don't expect it to act as a safety valve for land and population pressures. The same for Mars, etc., but even more so.


* See "The Marching Morons" by C.M. Kornbluth.

[paiute]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply....

Are you kidding? Here is all the land you could ever want and it is just in the continental US. Multiply by Canada, Mongolia, etc.:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll...=h&z=8&vpsrc=6

It isn't land we lack. It is water and topsoil, and it would be much much cheaper to find those on earth than find them on the moon.

[ben m]

The Moon is 300,000 km away from the Earth. What sort of object has an atmosphere that "extends" to 300,000km? It's what we'd call an M-star. The reason its atmosphere is so big is that its core is being heated by hydrogen fusion and is a million-degree plasma at high pressure. Is that what you had in mind for the Earth-Moon system?

You wanted a "room temperature" atmosphere 300,000 km across? Sorry, utterly impossible. If you keep dumping (cold) gas onto the Earth, we could swell up to about Jupiter-size (70,000km) and stay there. Note that Jupiter's probably-rocky core, with 70,000km of atmosphere on top of it, is not the least bit habitable.

Adding more mass to a Jupiter-like object, as it so happens, makes it denser, not larger. If it gets too dense in this way, its only choices are "begin stellar fusion" or "collapse into white dwarf". There is no "swell up to 300,000 km while remaining cold" option.

So: fun idea, but you have the planetary science basically wrong. I would agree with the posters who think you have the economics/demographics/geography wrong too (there is not now and probably never will be a "relieve overcrowding" motivation for colonizing the Moon) and the aerospace engineering also (we don't have the technology to seal up a self-sustaining food/water/oxygen cycle in Arizona, much less in a harsh vacuum. The largest rocket ever built---which no longer exists---was able to deliver less than one shipping container's worth of mass to the Moon.)

[Soapy Sam]

For the word "Moon" in the OP, substitute "Antarctica".
Realism factor just rose 5000%.

[jimbob]

How about dropping a small black hole in the centre of the moon so that it can hold atmosphere, followed by cometary bombardment of the moon?

I suppose there are a few technical problems with the idea.

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by RobRoy

Water is the other problem. Back in 2009 NASA said they had found a “significant” amount. But their definition and a lunar colony’s is vastly different. I believe they found a few gallons frozen on the moon, which was impressive given that there was debate over any water being present. Water would be key to developing and maintaining a lunar colony.

India's lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 detected what seem to be sheets of ice at least two meters thick. See Nasa Radar finds ice deposits at Moon's North Pole.


The October 2010 issue of Science looked at LCROSS ejecta. It evidently contains 5.5% water as well as nitrogen and carbon compounds:

N 6.6000%
CO 5.7000%
H2O 5.5000%
Zn 3.1000%
V 2.4000%
Ca 1.6000%
Au 1.6000%
Mn 1.3000%
Hg 1.2000%
Co 1.0000%
H2S 0.9213%
Fe 0.5000%
Mg 0.4000%
NH3 0.3317%
Cl 0.2000%
SO2 0.1755%
C2H4 0.1716%
CO2 0.1194%
C 0.0900%
Sc 0.0900%
CH3OH 0.0853%
S 0.0600%
B 0.0400%
P 0.0400%
CH4 0.0366%
O 0.0200%
Si 0.0200%
As 0.0200%
Al 0.0090%
OH 0.0017%

[Cainkane1]

You could colonize the moon easier than Mars. The moon has a lot of frozen water and its closer to earth than mars. Like Mars youd have to live most of your life indoors except on rare occassions when you suit up.

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years. Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough.

Admirable enthusiasm but you need to do some homework. None of your schemes are viable.

Originally Posted by jestblaze

What are your ideas for the moon?

There are some plausible lunar plans:

Spudis and Lavoie's plan
Bill Stone's Plan
ULA's plan

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Soapy Sam

For the word "Moon" in the OP, substitute "Antarctica".
Realism factor just rose 5000%.

This, for great justice.

[Brian-M]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply

Not true. There are vast stretches of land that are virtually uninhabited. True, some of this is desert, frozen wasteland or marginally habitable, but land is plentiful.

Originally Posted by jestblaze

and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals.

According to Wikipedia, world life expectancy has risen from 65 years to 70 years over the past two decades.

This seems dramatic, but I suspect that much of the change is due to a reduction of infant mortality in third world countries. But I don't see how life expectancy is relevant to anything. Population density is what you should be looking at.

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon.

Deserts and ocean floors are even closer. If we were to build biodomes for human habitation, it'd be much more feasible to build them here.

Originally Posted by jestblaze

We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years.

According to NASA, the ISS has a habitable Volume of 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters). By my estimation, that's about the same as a two story suburban house. Nowhere enough room to house a workforce building a bio-dome on the moon.

The first module of the ISS was launched in 1998. Assembly is expected to be completed sometime this year. 14 years to build is hardly "fast".

Now consider that the moon is literally a thousand times the distance from us than the ISS, construction of a moon base will be a lot more difficult.

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere.

That is a wacky idea. This would take far more than the entire energy consumption of the entire world to do. And the result would be a very explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. Let's hope that nobody lights a match.

Originally Posted by jestblaze

The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere.

Not enough ice and water on earth to pull this trick off. Plus, gravity weakens with distance. Long before the atmosphere reached the moon, the gravity would be so weak, the solar wind would blow the extra atmosphere into the depths of space.

Plus, even if you succeeded, the atmosphere around the moon would be far too thin for water (of blood inside humans) to remain liquid. And the friction of passing through the atmosphere would cause the moon to crash into the earth.

[Sorry, no time to read through the whole thread before posting, I gotta go.]

[RobRoy]

Originally Posted by HopDavid

India's lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 detected what seem to be sheets of ice at least two meters thick. See Nasa Radar finds ice deposits at Moon's North Pole.

Groovy, thanks for expanding my understanding.

[Mark6]

deleted due to redundancy

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by RobRoy

Groovy, thanks for expanding my understanding.

You're welcome. And thank you for a gracious response.

[RobRoy]

Originally Posted by HopDavid

You're welcome. And thank you for a gracious response.

No worries. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. That much water on the moon's surface actually reduces the concerns of habitation. Not colonization, per se, but certainly setting up some kind of fixed, and resupplied station. A first effort of mining that ice and bringing it into a beachhead would be a major accomplishment. Recycling and reusing the water would create a semi-sustainable outpost. Nothing close to colonization, but much more feasible than I had first thought.

[Lamuella]

Originally Posted by Cainkane1

You could colonize the moon easier than Mars. The moon has a lot of frozen water and its closer to earth than mars. Like Mars youd have to live most of your life indoors except on rare occassions when you suit up.

not only is the moon closer, but it's always pretty close to the same distance from us, hence you don't have to worry as much about accessibility windows.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Beelzebuddy

I suppose the most vital need of any moon base would be power. What with it being in space and all and efficient fusion still not possible, solar should work well enough. Does the moon have correct resources to manufacture some form of solar cell locally?

I suspect HopDavid can answer that question, but I think the answer is yes (sorry, in a rush, no time to research). But at least initially the best solution is likely nuclear power.
Once you've got your solar cell manufacturing in place, then solar may become more attractive.

[Roboramma]

Something I was thinking about recently: the cost of getting some of those valuable asteroids into earth orbit is mostly in the delta v. All the "mining asteroid" schemes seem to requires a large expenditure of energy to get the materials here (either mine first then bring it over, or park the thing in orbit and mine it here). But just altering it's orbit a little isn't anywhere near as energy intensive.

So, here's a "use the moon" idea: alter the orbit of a high value asteroid such that it impacts the moon. We've not used the moon's orbital velocity to "move the asteroid" into earth orbit. Mind you it's in a few more pieces than before. Now, go to the moon and "mine" the impact site.

The question is, how much of that material of the original asteroid will remain localized at least close to the impact site, such that mining might be feasible? Will it just vaporize and spread out over the entire surface, or will a sizable amount fall back near the impact site such that there will be very high concentrations of the original material?

[ConspiRaider]

Take a look at my signature and you'll get a clue as to how I feel about the Moon.

What we should have continued, after the mad dash to land - were missions to train ourselves on how to survive - for awhile - in an environment far removed from Little Blue Earth.

The Moon is perfect for that. Hostile enough for an ideal testbed - close enough to reach in days - safe enough to get folks home in a hurry, should the need arise. It doesn't get any better than this; if we proceed with my plan to get very familiar and comfortable within our solar system. We are going to need 'truck stops' all over the place once we truly get serious about plying the solar neighborhood. Whether those are on asteroids, Mars, planetary moons such as Callisto, Titan, Triton and so forth: We're going to need to plunk down for awhile for whatever: Refuel, replenish, rotate the crews/inhabitants on the truck stops and so forth.

The knowledge to travel regularly in space won't just 'come' to us. We have to go out and get it, implement it, test it, perfect it. That is what we use the Moon for. Not population offloading. That is a pure pipe dream.

[jasonpatterson]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

Something I was thinking about recently: the cost of getting some of those valuable asteroids into earth orbit is mostly in the delta v. All the "mining asteroid" schemes seem to requires a large expenditure of energy to get the materials here (either mine first then bring it over, or park the thing in orbit and mine it here). But just altering it's orbit a little isn't anywhere near as energy intensive.

So, here's a "use the moon" idea: alter the orbit of a high value asteroid such that it impacts the moon. We've not used the moon's orbital velocity to "move the asteroid" into earth orbit. Mind you it's in a few more pieces than before. Now, go to the moon and "mine" the impact site.

The question is, how much of that material of the original asteroid will remain localized at least close to the impact site, such that mining might be feasible? Will it just vaporize and spread out over the entire surface, or will a sizable amount fall back near the impact site such that there will be very high concentrations of the original material?

It would depend strongly on the impact site, the relative velocities of the asteroid and the moon, and the size of the asteroid. A relatively small asteroid dropped at low velocity (relatively speaking, obviously) should stay fairly close to the impact site. That said, the craters of the moon were formed by asteroid impacts, there's no real need to cause additional impacts to check to see if the idea works, just check out the existing craters. If the scheme would work and the little green men haven't already gone through with their metal detectors and found the stuff, there is a lot smaller input cost to the plan.

One major downside to this is the added cost of removing the metal from the lunar surface and transporting it back to Earth (or even lunar orbit.) The cost to get from a NEO asteroid that is in the same plane as Earth back to Earth orbit is very small, energetically speaking.

I also like the idea of trying to move a metallic asteroid and a carbonaceous asteroid close together (or perhaps collide them at low velocity) so that half of an asteroid is converted into a mine and the other half living space. Unfortunately, at the moment we're having a hard enough time getting people into low earth orbit, let alone exploration and expansion.

[RossFW]

The bottom of the ocean is a lot closer and would be much easier to colonize.

[Patrick1000]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply and life expectancy rates are climbing dramatically and will continue to do so with upcoming advances in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals. Its time to discuss how we can expand and the moon is the closest. My first idea is simple, a biodome like structure planted permanently on the moon. We could even crash the iss into it for it if we really wanted but that was built so fast with international support i'm sure a moon base could be developed in ten or so years. Now a wacky idea I had for colonizing the moon involved melting both ice caps completely and turning the water vapor into breathable atmosphere. The goal of this is to extend the atmosphere of the Earth so far it wraps around the moon, what I believe is the only way to get the moon to hold a full atmosphere. I'm unsure of the distance to atmospheric expansion ratio but just thought we could also lower the sea level using some of the oceans to supplement this project and extend it enough. What are your ideas for the moon?

Are you sure they could navigate across cislunar space..?????...That's an awful long way to go without a compass....

[Turgor]

Originally Posted by HopDavid

India's lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 detected what seem to be sheets of ice at least two meters thick. See Nasa Radar finds ice deposits at Moon's North Pole.


The October 2010 issue of Science looked at LCROSS ejecta. It evidently contains 5.5% water as well as nitrogen and carbon compounds:

N 6.6000%
CO 5.7000%
H2O 5.5000%
Zn 3.1000%
V 2.4000%
Ca 1.6000%
Au 1.6000%
Mn 1.3000%
Hg 1.2000%
Co 1.0000%
H2S 0.9213%
Fe 0.5000%
Mg 0.4000%
NH3 0.3317%
Cl 0.2000%
SO2 0.1755%
C2H4 0.1716%
CO2 0.1194%
C 0.0900%
Sc 0.0900%
CH3OH 0.0853%
S 0.0600%
B 0.0400%
P 0.0400%
CH4 0.0366%
O 0.0200%
Si 0.0200%
As 0.0200%
Al 0.0090%
OH 0.0017%

That gives a whole new perspective on moonshine!

[Cuddles]

Originally Posted by sts60

The costs to simply lift a signficant portion of Earth's population into space, even if they did nothing other than die immediately*, would be staggering. And that's not even getting them into orbit, let alone to the Moon.

A few people have mentioned cost, but I don't think that's necessarily the biggest concern. More important is simply the number of people you would need to move. Let's assume that we've solved all the problems associated with building a lunar base and are ready to start shipping people out there. How many people do we need to move? Well, the current population growth rate is around 78 million people per year (134 births, 56 deaths). Deaths are expected to increase to 80 or so by 2040, so lets conservatively say the population is increasing by 50 million per year once we're ready to start shipping. That's 137,000 per day.

So, how many have we actually managed so far? According to Wiki, 529 people have travelled into space according to the USA definition. That's just over 10 per year, or 500,000 times too low. Of course, the vast majority of those never actually got anywhere near the Moon.

And how many could we actually mange? Let's use the shuttle as a baseline, although it was never actually capable of getting anywhere near the Moon (the highest was around 35,000 km for geostationary transfer, over 10 times too low). The shuttle can carry a maximum of about 25,000 kg, so call it around 250 people (it's around 1,000 m³, so should be big enough to fit them in, if rather cramped for a several day journey). That means something like 550 shuttle flights every single day. So far there have been a grand total of 135 shuttle flights in just under 30 years, split between 5 shuttles.

In other words, we would need, at an absolute minimum ignoring any need for servicing between flights, 88 times as many shuttles (4 day flight each way, so you need 8 times more than the 550) making 45,000 times as many flights. To put that in perspective, there have been a grand total of 6854 spacecraft ever launched. Just to keep the Earth's population constant, you'd need to launch more spacecraft every two weeks than humanity has managed in its entire history. And that's with incredibly unrealistic assumptions about what a shuttle can actually do, along with rather optimistic assumptions about how many people you need to move in the first place.

So yeah. Shipping people off the Earth != the answer.

Originally Posted by Lamuella

I think you are underestimating how far away the moon is. Depending on where it is in its orbit, the moon is between 362,000 and 405,000 kilometres away from the Earth. To put that in perspective, that's about 30 times the diameter of the Earth.

To put that in even more perspective, Jupiter has a radius of just under 35,000 km. In other words, extending the Earth's atmosphere out to the Moon would require turning it into a gas giant over 10 times the radius (and therefore 1000 times the volume) of the largest planet in the solar system. To put it in even further perspective, the Sun has a radius of a bit under 700,000 km. Extending the Earth's atmosphere out to the Moon would require turning it into a star half the size (1/8 the volume and presumably mass) of the Sun. The smallest known star has a mass around 1/100 that of the Sun.

So forget all the stuff about drag and pressure. What's being proposed here is having the most of the population of Earth live inside a star, with the remainder merely living at its surface.


Edit: One other thing worth bearing in mind. The Moon's surface area is a bit under 40 million km². Antarctica's surface area is around 14 million km². The Sahara's area is about 10 million km². Greenland is over 2 million. In fact, the Moon's entire surface area is only slightly larger than that of the Earth's 10 largest deserts combined. So if land is the problem, we already have plenty right here with virtually no-one living in it, and that is far easier to get to and far, far easier to make habitable.

[alexi_drago]

Do the space elevator ideas actually have a chance of becoming reality? I don't mean for taking large numbers of people off earth but for getting large amounts of material to and from orbit cheaper than using rockets?

[sts60]

Somewhere, maybe not in this thread, I believe someone mentioned dropping comets on the Moon to add to the water. (This was done on Venus in, IIRC, 2061 by Arthur C. Clarke.)

It would a fun exercise to figure out what it would take to terraform the Moon using comets and some sort of Barsoomian atmospheric plant which would constantly replenish the atmosphere. Assume you could build the space infrastructure to capture and place some sort of ion drives to round up the comets, and had all the power you needed to extract desired gases from lunar materials. How fast would you have to produce and replenish an atmosphere? What would be the desired mix of gases as you evolved the atmosphere to something thin but breathable?

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

I suspect HopDavid can answer that question, but I think the answer is yes (sorry, in a rush, no time to research). But at least initially the best solution is likely nuclear power.
Once you've got your solar cell manufacturing in place, then solar may become more attractive.

The moon's hard vacuum, so vapor deposition is easier. This is the advantage Alex Ignatiev and other push for solar cell pavers.

One of the major obstacles (there are several) is feed stocks. Mining and purifying them takes energy and infrastructure.

In particular, mining aluminum is very energy intensive. You melt a halogen salt, dissolve alumina in the the molten salt and then separate the aluminum using electrolysis.

One of the major obstacles in my daydreams to split lunar water into propellant is the need for a robust power source. I've heard of solar cells that crank out 200 watts per kilogram. It takes about 286 kJ to crack a mole of water (about 18 grams). As you know, landing mass on the lunar surface is very difficult and expensive. Landing a power source able to crack propellant at a useful rate is rather implausible with present state of the art.

A power source up to mining aluminum and the other solar cell paver feed stocks is even less plausible.

So it's kind of a chicken and egg problem -- you need lots of power to make lunar solar cells from local materials. How do we get that first robust power source on the lunar surface?

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by alexi_drago

Do the space elevator ideas actually have a chance of becoming reality? I don't mean for taking large numbers of people off earth but for getting large amounts of material to and from orbit cheaper than using rockets?

In my opinion no. At least not like the elevator from earth to geosynch and beyond as portrayed in Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise.

Such a beanstalk would have a huge cross sectional area. Thus it is vulnerable to damage from space debris and micrometeorites.

Designs call for elevator cars climbing the stalk at 360 km/hour. At this rate it would take 4 or 5 days to reach geosynch. And how many elevator cars can a bean stalk support? You would need a through put rate that provides enough revenue to exceed elevator maintenance costs. This is discussed in The Space Elevator Feasibility Condition

So even if we did manage to manufacture carbon bucky tubes in long lengths as well as the political support for such an expensive mega engineering project, it's far from a given that an elevator would be the panacea some hope for.

An orbital space tether is somewhat more plausible.

[The Greater Fool]

Originally Posted by HopDavid

In my opinion no. At least not like the elevator from earth to geosynch and beyond as portrayed in Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise.

Such a beanstalk would have a huge cross sectional area. Thus it is vulnerable to damage from space debris and micrometeorites.

Designs call for elevator cars climbing the stalk at 360 km/hour. At this rate it would take 4 or 5 days to reach geosynch. And how many elevator cars can a bean stalk support? You would need a through put rate that provides enough revenue to exceed elevator maintenance costs. This is discussed in The Space Elevator Feasibility Condition

So even if we did manage to manufacture carbon bucky tubes in long lengths as well as the political support for such an expensive mega engineering project, it's far from a given that an elevator would be the panacea some hope for.

An orbital space tether is somewhat more plausible.

A space elevator is currently feasible for the Moon (and Mars), from what Wiki says:

Originally Posted by Wiki

A lunar space elevator can possibly be built with currently available technology about 50,000 kilometers (31,000 mi) long extending through the Earth-Moon L1 point from an anchor point near the center of the visible part of Earth's moon.[49] However, the lack of an atmosphere allows for other, perhaps better, alternatives to rockets, such as mass driver systems.
On the far side of the moon, a lunar space elevator would need to be very long (more than twice the length of an Earth elevator) but due to the low gravity of the Moon, can be made of existing engineering materials.[49]

[Dumb All Over]

Originally Posted by jestblaze

Land is in short supply....

I would take issue with your first stated premise. No, land is not in short supply.

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by sts60

Somewhere, maybe not in this thread, I believe someone mentioned dropping comets on the Moon to add to the water. (This was done on Venus in, IIRC, 2061 by Arthur C. Clarke.)

It would a fun exercise to figure out what it would take to terraform the Moon using comets and some sort of Barsoomian atmospheric plant which would constantly replenish the atmosphere. Assume you could build the space infrastructure to capture and place some sort of ion drives to round up the comets, and had all the power you needed to extract desired gases from lunar materials. How fast would you have to produce and replenish an atmosphere? What would be the desired mix of gases as you evolved the atmosphere to something thin but breathable?

Using comets to terraform Mars was used in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. Chris McKay is also an advocate, see Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars

Zubrin and McKay proposed comet impacts to vaporize the CO2 and water at the Martian poles. Once these green house gases are in the atmosphere they hope for runaway green house effect. Thus in their scheme, most of the atmosphere comes from volatiles already on Mars' surface. The volatiles from asteroids would add a small fraction.

They propose strapping four 5 gigawatt NTR rockets to bodies out past Saturn. To provide a reference, the largest U.S. power plant is the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant in Arizona. This plant's 3 reactors put out 3.8 gigawatts.

So Zubrin & McKay's NTR rocket would need a power source six times as powerful as the largest nuclear power plant in the U.S. And they propose to put this rocket on an object in the outer solar system.

They propose to use the comet's mass as reaction mass. The cometary volatiles need to find their way to the rocket chamber. So in addition to a mammoth rocket and power source they would need to establish a mining and transportation infrastructure on this comet.

I believe terraforming any celestial body is a pipe dream. Inhabitants of Mars, moon or asteroids will live in wholly artificial environments probably buried in regolith.

Lack of atmosphere is a lunar advantage. It opens the possibility of mass drivers. Mass drivers could make a huge difference in reaction mass needed for exporting resources. I would not want an atmosphere on the moon.

[HopDavid]

Originally Posted by The Greater Fool

A space elevator is currently feasible for the Moon (and Mars), from what Wiki says:

Yes, a moon and Mars elevator are more doable than an earth beanstalk.

But I differ with Wiki on some parts about the moon elevator. The closest thing to a moon synchronous orbit are the earth moon L1 and L2 points. EML1 is about 56,000 kilometers from the moon's surface. EML2 is about 63,000 kilometers from the moon's surface.

For all points between EML1 and the moon's surface, the net acceleration is towards the moon. So the tether would have to extend well beyond the EML1 to balance the moon's pull. So a 50,000 km tether extending from the moon's surface would fall back to the moon.

Favorable conditions for a beanstalk is high angular velocity and shallow gravity well. By those criteria, the best body I know of is Phobos. It's gravity well is negligible and, if I remember right, it's angular velocity is one revolution each 7 hours and 40 minutes.



The foot of the above tether is moving .6 km/s with regard to Mars. So rendezvous could be accomplished with small suborbital hops from Mars' surface. A lander entering Mars' atmosphere at .6 km/s would have much less Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) issues.

All of the above tether lies below Mars synchronous orbit (17,000 km altitude). A Mars beanstalk would have to extend well beyond Mars synchronous orbit.