Let’s go to the moon and stay there. We are making plans.
There seems to be a lot of talk about colonizing Mars these days, but I think we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves because don't we first have to learn how to do it? I think the best place to learn how to colonize any other planet is to start with the one that's closest to us. Let's put a colony on the moon.
There are several Reasons why the moon would be the best place to start the most important of which is time. It takes less time to travel to and from the moon. OK, we still have problems like where is our air and water going to come from. How do we protect the colonists from solar radiation? How do we deal with drastic changes in temperature from sun side to dark side. (between plus 120 and minus 230 degrees Celsius)
There's been a lot of speculation on how this might be done going back as far as 50 or 60 years when you look at science fiction. I remember reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress when I was a teenager. Just a few years ago I read the most recent novel about colonization on the moon, "Artemis". Lots of Speculation and research. Not a whole lot of hard facts.
According to msn.com,
‘Not only NASA and ESA but also space agencies from Russia, China, and India, as well as private companies, want access to the Moon. There are already plans to colonize the Moon. With NASA’s Artemis program setting its sights on the Moon, national and international spaceflight focus shifts from low Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond.
The intense needs of these future missions have sparked a new era of research on keeping humans safe and healthy while in space for long periods.’
To me, the saddest part of this story is I will probably never live to see this occur, but I hope it does. It will be the beginning of mankind stepping away from this blue ball of water and into a very unforgiving universe full of the unknown.
If you're interested in reading one person's view of what that moon colony might be like. Read “Artemis” by Andy Weir. This is the same guy that wrote The Martian. (good Book)
Moon village: Aluminium colony with wine, Wi-Fi, vehicles, hospitals for 75 residents (msn.com)
Boots to tracks: Northrop Grumman to develop railroad concept for Moon (interestingengineering.com)
China to test Moon base brick made of lunar soil aboard space station (interestingengineering.com)
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