The isotope Helium 3 is a frequently cited item to be “mined” on the Moon at some point in the future. Still, Helium 3 will only be truly useful if we ever figure out how to generate electricity using fusion.
Also the 1967 Outer Space Treaty knocks down Newt’s ancillary Big Idea™ to make Gingrich Base the 51st state, FWIW.
Until we repudiate it.
Actually that’s a good analogy as to why it’s a good idea. When the early settlers traveled from the east coast to California they stopped periodically to rest up and resupply…especially just before crossing the Rocky Mountains. The moon has tons of material, including water and materials like aluminum oxide (for that rocket fuel stuff). So, you go to the moon, where you have busy little beavers making fuel, then you fuel up and it’s a hell of a lot easier to get from the Moon to Mars than it is from Earth orbit (where there isn’t a lot of materials just laying about that could be processed into fuel, air, water and other expendables). Or, you put your big ass Mars rocket into a Lunar orbit and then send expendable supplies up from the Moon instead of from the Earth.
The trick to all of this is to build the infrastructure, which certainly will cost a lot. But it’s not worthless to have such a weigh station as you imply…assuming you actually do want to go anywhere in the solar system and you want to take people with you.
-XT
Okay, say that it takes 1000 units of fuel to get off the Earth, 150 units to get off the Moon, and 150 units to accelerate to whatever cruise speed you want, on your way to Mars.
Your ship has enough room for 1000 units of fuel. If you point it directly at Mars, you’re not going to be able to hit your cruise speed and it will take 8 centuries to get there. Alternatively, you could point it at the Moon. You get there, refuel, and put in 300 units of fuel - 150 to get off the Moon and 150 for the rest of the trip. In total, you’ve just used 1300 units of fuel.
Now how is that better than docking at a space station in Earth’s orbit? You use 1000 units to get off the Earth, refuel at the station, and head to Mars. 1150 units of fuel.
If the Moon was a production source (e.g. of fuel), then there’s a reason to go there. If it is not, then it’s always a waste. The terms of the OP are that it is not a production source.
Replicating machines.
If we can crack that, then basically the moon makes a lot of sense. You deploy a range of little bots, each with specific purpose:
etc, etc. Basically, if you can crack self replicating machines, it just becomes a programming challenge. You break the process of moondust -> things you want into individual stages, with a dedicated machine for each stage, and one machine type that can build the other machines. At that point the moon because x trillion tons of valuable resources. THose resources then can be despatched to whichever Lagrange point you’re actually constructing/refuelling/loading your spaceships at by way of mass driver.
Or alternatively if you find a transportation method that needs to be anchored somewhere with sufficient mass, but gets fucked up by gravity/emits sufficient level of Hawking or what radiation that you don’t want to locate it on earth.
So, is anybody working on replicating machines?
Lots of places are, but we are talking embryo stage. I don’t think we need that tech to exploit the moon. I’d say that the first things we exploit on the Moon won’t be interplanetary travel or shipping though…it will be science and research. Just like the various scientific expeditions to Antarctica. I don’t know where this idea comes from that we know everything about the Moon and there is nothing left for us to do there. Lots of big questions still haven’t been answered, even with the increased level of robotic probes that have been sent recently (which should tell you something right there…why are countries sending this sort of stuff there if we know it all?).
-XT
They don’t have to be nanobots, do they?
Right, but they didn’t stock up on calories for the Rocky Mountain trip by burning all their on-hand calories climbing to the top of some other mountain that wasn’t even on the way and didn’t even have any supplies.
No, the moon doesn’t have any appreciable amount of magic space-travel fuel, not in enough amounts where it can be put together and launched into orbit. I mean yes, in the entire moon there is probably a decent amount, but the energy involved in mining the entire moon would be greater than what you’d get out. If you have that much energy at your disposal, then you don’t need to stop at the moon.
No, they built a way station and set up logistics in the form of supplies that settlers could stop and and prepare for the crossing. Sort of, you know, like what we could do with the Moon. See, if you transship everything to Earth orbit then you have to transship EVERYTHING there. From the Earth gravity well. Whereas, from the Moon there is stuff on the Moon that you could use, if you know basic chemistry and have access to energy.
Does ‘magic space-travel fuel’ equal ‘basic chemistry learned in first year college courses’? 
Seriously, where do you get the idea that any of this stuff takes magic? What it would take is MONEY (well, and energy…and effort of course), not magic. And it would only be useful for human planetary exploration beyond flags and footprints type missions. If you are just going to do that sort of thing you do it the Lewis and Clark way. If you want to go a bunch of times then you set up logistics to support many trips. The Moon is one potential way to do that. There are others, of course, but trying to just wing it using everything launched from Earth is probably not going to be the best way to go.
-XT
The LaGrange points are the best locations for transshipment and manufacturing facilities in the earth-moon system. The moon has a limited role as a materials source for manufacturing facilities located at L4 or L5. Any materials that can be mined on the moon can be had at less energy cost from asteroids. Although shipping time from the asteroid belt is longer, once the "pipelines? are filled, the material flow can be maintained. Going to the moon is a diversion from the real party and has only national prestige value.
Isn’t the moon a safer place for long-term habitation than LEO and the Lagrange points because you can shield people from dangers such as solar flares, radiation, and micrometeorites much more easily?
Absolutely, though I think the limits are less sever than you are saying here. But yeah…I’m not saying that the Moon is either the optimal or the only way to do this, and from what I’ve read there are several asteroids that could be used in similar ways but work a lot better.
However, you COULD use the Moon for this as well, especially if you happened to have an expanding Moon base (initially for, say, scientific discovery) and infrastructure. There is no ‘magic’ required to make it work, and it beats the hell out of trying to move everything up from Earth alone.
-XT
LEO is pretty safe, because it is inside the Van Allen belts. Biggest risk there is space garbage. The asteroid belt is pretty far out, and should have less risk from solar flares. Other than insuring survival of the race, the main selling point of a spacefaring society is cheap transportation of materials. All of your space infrastructure is going to be at some risk from cosmic radiation and meteorite strike. Permanent installations will need to be either hogged out of large asteroids or surrounded by shielding materials (or, as you say, beneath the moon’s surface). Arthur C. Clarke had some neat examples. The point is that, once you are on the gravity equipotential, the materials are already there and cheaply accessible. It’s just that first step that’s hard and costly.
Remind me again. How far is the asteroid belt, and how long would travel time there and back be using known tech?
As much as I relish discussing the obvious and elementary point that resupply waypoints are useful, I have to keep pointing out that they’re only useful if they provide enough resources to get you back out of the gravity well and beyond (including the resources to extract those resources). The entire assumption depends on it, and you’re pretending as if it’s a settled question that this is true, and it’s far from settled.
I’ve had four years of college chemistry. I’m ready for you to start enlightening me about the easy pickings of fuel laying around on the moon waiting to be harvested.
Oh, I see, so all it takes is an abundance of energy and money. Since those are of course solved problems, let’s just jaunt straight up there and start exploiting.
-XT
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Ok
Oh, I see, we just throw up a stable, safe, commercially viable fusion reactor. On the moon. It’s so simple, why didn’t you just say that?
A technology which for the past 50 years has been “only 50 years away” is, for planning purposes, indistinguishable from magic.
It seems to me that a good few technologies needed for interplanetary travel are not currently available
But if He3 fusion is too big a stretch for you, how about Thorium fission?
http://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel.html
shrug we have thorium on Earth. Fission is not new, and there’s a variety of reasons it hasn’t been used for space propulsion that I don’t see getting solved anytime soon.
Regarding the video clip, you’ll have to summarize for me what you think it says. I’m not really inclined to sit through a 10-minute video clip for what probably will turn out to be a nonsequitur… certainly not a TED talk, which are invariably breathless woo-woo fairytale BS.