For me, the most important reason to live on the Moon, or Mars, or wherever, is that right now we’ve got all our eggs in one basket. One environmental catastrophe, possibly like the one we’re moving into right now (global warming), could wipe us out. The more planets we’re on, the less likely it is that something will wipe out the human race.
I’m sold. When does the shuttle board? 
All jokes and sarcasm and wit aside - I don’t know why the hell anyone would want to live on the moon.
I think it would be hellish.
I live for blue skies, changing leaves, green grass, and all that. Not having it would be nightmarish for me. The idea of being confined indoors (and of course, the indoor environments would all be industrial or futuro-slick - I can’t forsee many attempts at stonemasonry or any other kind of traditional architecture on a space station or lunar base) makes me sick.
Genetic engineering and/or as-yet uninvented drugs should solve that.
Except there’s only so much of it to go around. Also, the environment on Earth is a concern; it isn’t on the Moon. If you want to release self replicating robots and have them replicate, then build something hundreds of miles across - you can do that on the Moon, without destroying the nonexistant ecology or air quality. One of the major advantages of the Moon and space in general is space, and a huge amount of resources for the taking.
Most likely, the colony would come first. Governments and groups not motivated by profit ( religious/political refugees, for example ) in the past were usually the first supporters of such expeditions. There will likely never be a economic incentive to build the first Mars base any more than there was for the first explorers; corporations/merchants don’t have the long term vision for it. A government or explorer needs to find or make something worthwhile there first.
In the long run, I believe that the Moon will be colonized, as will space, because we can, and some people for one reason or another will. And once a self sustaining economy exists up there, it will grow on it’s own whether or not there is any economic benefit in trading with Earth. It looks harder than it is because our technology is so primitive and because there isn’t any infrastructure. Including any “biological infrastructure”; unlike the New World we’ll have to build our own life support.
Personally, I expect that at first space will be colonized by the first nation or organization that has both the technology and the ideology to do so, which means it will probably not be America. We think too much in the short term and about profits; space will be colonized by people who care about the long term and the future of humanity more than making money in the immediate future. I expect the economy of space in the long run to vastly outstrip Earth’s, but I also expect that will take a long time and shareholders lack the patience.
Why not ? I expect that most of any fairly-near-term future colony would be underground, and that means the one thing they won’t be short of is rock.
I’d also like to point out that, since this thread has segued into a discussion of humanity’s general future on the Moon and in space, that what conditions you have will depend a great deal on what era you are speak of. Right now, we’d be talking about small, cramped Skylab habitats; only dedicated pioneers/explorers would want to put up with it. The more our technology improves and the more of an infrastructure we build, the more acceptable life up there will be to normal people. Eventually, it should be as pleasant as any place on Earth or more so, but not without a lot of work from the pioneers and a lot of technological advancement.
You know there are some very valid points here , I am sure as always there would be a select few whom would welcome the chance for a major change of scenery, but I fear that before that could happen there comes the question of ownership of afore mentioned moon. We live in a world that cannot unite its self under a common banner. As such I fear that there would come a costly war on the behalf of ownership of the moon.
I don’t know. Without a blue sky, I can’t possibly imagine it being as nice as even a shitty place on earth on a clear day.
We have virtually no data–certainly none long-term–for the effect of low gravity environments on humans or any mammals. It’s quite possible that 20-40% gravity is sufficient to prevent the kind of physical degradation that occurs in free-fall. Humans aren’t “meant to live” in Arctic climates, either, but we’ve managed to adapt.
This is a succinct assessment of the true metric by which colonization of space or extraterrestrial bodies can be measured. We’ll do it on a broad scale when it is economically feasible to do so. While it behooves us to go ahead and make preliminary forays into the exploration or space, until the cost per pound becomes on the order of a modern transAtlantic flight it just isn’t going to be viable to emegrate off the planet, and until independent, economically and logistically self-sustaining habitats are a reality, large scale space colonization is a nonstarter.
The technological hurdles can be overcome; LionelHutz405’s claim that we are “hundreds of years away from having the ability to make it even remotely practical,” ignores the fact that once you start developing the necessary technologies in earnest, they tend to snowball. If we were still printing books on a Gutenberg-type printing press universal literacy and daily newspapers would be nigh on impossible. We’ve scarcely even begun to work on the problem of permanent human habitation. ralph124c brings up the example of Biosphere II, but that is not strictly relevent; the Biosphere II experiment was designed to test the ability of a habitat to be self-sustaining, sans outside supplies, in particular water and air. If we posit that we will need to replenish any habitat with basic environmental elements, then that problem reduces to a method for extracting those from the surrounding environment rather than 100% efficient recycling of them.
Talking of the Moon specifically, however, begs a different question from space habitation in general. Why build a habitat on the Moon? Doing so chains you to a gravity well, against which you have to push out. You are, as msmith537 indicates, stuck with the gravity provided without variation. The Moon is a rather poor environment for astronomy; while it does lack the obstructive atmosphere of Earth, it suffers from tidal shifts and Moonquakes, and over most of the Moon’s surface it is in direct sunlight half of the time (~14 days). An orbiting telescope, which can be oriented at will, makes far more sense. Ditto for many the other claims for Lunar habitation, particularly when mineral and elemental resources, in the form of Near Earth asteroids of all sizes are so readily available. The Moon lacks a protective magnetosphere to deflect radiation, and although it’s true that you can burrow down into the regolith for protection, you could do the same by layering rock or slag tailings from the smelting of valuable ore on the outside of your habitat. (Or you can make the outer layer of an orbiting habitat a big water tank, slowing and absorbing all but the most energetic particles. 20 linear feet of water is about as effective a shield as the hundred miles or so of the Earth’s atmosphere.)
Anything we can get on the Moon we can most likely find elsewhere, and with less effort. I see little use in a large scale colony on Luna as opposed to a habitat in orbit, rotated to simulate Earth gravity if so required.
Stranger
I can understand that. Now that I’m a bit older I value a large blue sky too.
But when I was younger growing up in Wisconsin, it was 20 below outside and covered with snow, I dreamt of living in a Logan’s Run style climate controlled tropical inside world. I loved hanging out in huge indoor climate controlled malls & airports. At that time of my life I think I could have adjusted to living in a huge mall-type place with my own tropical greenhouse filled with plants, tropical fish ponds & fountains.
If you want blue sky, no one’s saying you have to move. But I bet there a lots of people perfectly content to live a nice, pleasant, climate controlled lifestyle.
[Lewis Black] Until a breeze comes along and then all you have to look at is sticks for six months! [/LB] I seriously doubt that any colony, either in space or another planetary body will be devoid of plant life. No doubt you’ll have trees as well as food bearing plants. We’re still too close to our tree swinging ancestors to totally abandon nature. We’ll want plants and pets because they’re such a comfort here, in an alien environment like space, they’ll be even more important to us.
You know, down in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl.
Yeah, I keep seeing topics I want to respond to but I never get around to joining so I can.
All I have to say is if you don’t live on the moon where will you kee your giant frikkin “LASER”
We aren’t ‘meant’ to spend 8+ hours/day sitting and gazing into a glowing screen, either, but I do that. It has some less-than-desirable effects on my muscles, too- maybe if I lived on Mars, I’d be as strong in the lower gravity as most humans are on Earth. Also, I’d only be 16 years old on Mars, so maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal that I’ve managed to accomplish nothing with my life yet…
Amen sister. I can totally sign on to that.
Hey, you signed up here. I didn’t do that until I was 42 years old!
Maybe. Do you like bouncing like Niel Armstrong on the moon whenever you walk?
Just do a Google search. All experts seem to agree that extended periods of low gravity have a negative effect on humans. Not just muscle atrophy but problems with hand eye coordination as well.
or yet-uninvented teraforming robots while we’re at it.
I once went to restaurant on the moon. Food was good, but there was just no atmosphere.
mm
One of my all time favorite filk songs,
I’d go at a moment’s notice.
Cite, please. Again, we have no experience with extended (more than four days) in a low gravity, non-free fall environment. “Problems with hand-eye coordination”? Please. People have adapted to any number of activies requiring hand-eye coordination that are not found in nature. As for muscle atrophy (and skeletal degradation, and the hydraulic “bloat” and sinus activity that accompanies free fall) no bound has been established. We simply have no data on the long-term physiological effects of a low gravity environment, period.
There are plenty of arguments against establishing a permanent colony on the Moon, but this is about the least substantial of them.
Stranger
Giant steps are what you take
Walking on the moon