The future of mankind on the Moon
Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 7:40 am
On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, how about a discussion of future prospects for humans on the Moon?
When I was watching Armstrong go down the ladder 50 years ago, if someone had told me that the Apollo program would end in a few years and there would be no more footprints on the Moon for 50 years, I wouldn't have believed it. Of course, the intense rivalry with the USSR was the only motivation for spending the necessary money.
Today, it looks like tourism and national prestige could fuel a human return on a small scale. If it was safe and affordable, I'd sign up in a second for a vacation on the Moon. At the moment, the market seems to be restricted to adventurous billionaires.
Settlement by millions of people? I doubt that. Spending the rest of my life confined to pressurized habitats, rovers, and space suits does not sound appealing. Because of the low gravity, providing a breathable atmosphere for the Moon seems unlikely. Perhaps some future cyborgs or re-engineered humans would be happy walking around in a vacuum.
Mining the Moon? I hope not! The lunar surface is a priceless history book, nearly unchanged for over 3 billion years. Strip mining the surface for helium-3 or whatever would be a travesty. If there is a useful resource of hydrogen in the permanently shadowed polar craters, I'd go along with extracting that. If we want resources for building space colonies, I'd much rather see us find a near-Earth asteroid and demolish it, possibly removing a threat to the Earth. Some small asteroids like Bennu and Ryugu appear to be "rubble piles" and it might be easy to disassemble them without blasting.
Compared with the Moon, the South Pole seems like paradise. Science and tourism support a small human presence there, and I think that in the next 50 years the surface of the Moon might develop along the same lines.
When I was watching Armstrong go down the ladder 50 years ago, if someone had told me that the Apollo program would end in a few years and there would be no more footprints on the Moon for 50 years, I wouldn't have believed it. Of course, the intense rivalry with the USSR was the only motivation for spending the necessary money.
Today, it looks like tourism and national prestige could fuel a human return on a small scale. If it was safe and affordable, I'd sign up in a second for a vacation on the Moon. At the moment, the market seems to be restricted to adventurous billionaires.
Settlement by millions of people? I doubt that. Spending the rest of my life confined to pressurized habitats, rovers, and space suits does not sound appealing. Because of the low gravity, providing a breathable atmosphere for the Moon seems unlikely. Perhaps some future cyborgs or re-engineered humans would be happy walking around in a vacuum.
Mining the Moon? I hope not! The lunar surface is a priceless history book, nearly unchanged for over 3 billion years. Strip mining the surface for helium-3 or whatever would be a travesty. If there is a useful resource of hydrogen in the permanently shadowed polar craters, I'd go along with extracting that. If we want resources for building space colonies, I'd much rather see us find a near-Earth asteroid and demolish it, possibly removing a threat to the Earth. Some small asteroids like Bennu and Ryugu appear to be "rubble piles" and it might be easy to disassemble them without blasting.
Compared with the Moon, the South Pole seems like paradise. Science and tourism support a small human presence there, and I think that in the next 50 years the surface of the Moon might develop along the same lines.