Usdk wrote:
we can't get anywhere else and back fast enough to have a manned crew do it. This shit is a pipe dream until we get a better propulsion system.
I'm talking about the solar, not interstellar travel.
How long does it take to make a bottle of wine? How long does it take to build a large ship? How long does it take to develop a new computing application? The better part of a decade?
Round trip to the Moon and back takes a week.
Round trip to Mars and back would take a year or two.
Round trip to Titan and back would take 5-10 years.
Usdk wrote:
There's nothing on the moon worth mining that we've found yet.
The greatest resource on the Moon is the Moon itself.
There is no air and very little gravity. Hence my examples about things like solar power, ball bearings, medical supplies and microchips. These are things that are very expensive and difficult to produce on Earth because of gravity, air and the presence of bacteria. Building facilities to remove those factors - clean rooms, insulated structures, vacuum chambers - costs billions annually.
On the Moon, for example, we could produce syringes and antibiotics in the open, without the need for sterilization procedures or artificial vacuums. We could produce absolutely perfect ball bearings built to specifications all but impossible on earth, allowing us to build lighter and more powerful motorized equipment. Camera lenses with magnification orders of magnitude superior to what is now on the shelf.
Also consider the cost of just moving things around on Earth - conveyor belts, forklifts, backhoes, haulers, etc. Energy costs. On the moon, or in space, extremely massive objects could be moved around for almost no energy cost. Think how much energy it takes, for example, to do the heavy lifting involved in building battle tanks, or prefabricated buildings, or building a heavy piece of equipment like a dragline or a cement mixer. Imagine if all those energy costs, everywhere in the world, were instantly reduced by 90%. That's a lot of energy - a lot of cash saved.
Because there is no atmosphere, solar panels would yield far more power, power that could be repackaged into energy-intensive industrial goods such as refined metals and industrial equipment. Because there is no weather, solar panels, pipelines and other infrastructure would never dilapidated.
There are also the environmental benefits. Fields that require working with substances that are incredibly dangerous, like radioactive isotopes and heavy metals, could do their work in the open and keep their materials in large open pools, without having to take precautions to prevent radioactivity or heavy metals from leeching into groundwater. Because the Moon has far less tectonic activity than the Earth, materials would remain stable for long periods. My argument here isn't environmental - it's economic, it's how much cheaper it would be to work with dangerous substances without the need to spend money on precautions.
In short, lunar industry would be to the Industrial Age what the Internet was to the invention of the alphabet. Within a century, we could potentially see the cost of any and all manufactured goods - almost everything we use on a day to day basis - cut to a fraction of what it is now.
And whoever owns that infrastructure will attain a degree of wealth previously beyond imagining. You think Bill Gates is loaded. Imagine if he got a dollar whenever anyone, anywhere, buys anything that costs more than two dollars.
