I have been known to be a tad obsessive in my writings. Many others do not share that ritual interest, only requiring an introduction rather than an encyclopedia. That is why I prepared a summary of my exploration of planetary settlement.
I have recapitulated the subject headings of my monograph and indicate what I found most interesting in my speculations.
The manner of construction of the colony and the collection of resources for it are simple and are discussed to the sections where you can find them in the section titled the basics, water water everywhere, and the one on recoverables.
The matter of attachment to the land is much more interesting and complicated, and the longest of the sections is devoted to it. Everyone who feels at home loves that home. Our colonists must be given the opportunity to do the same, or they will be exiles in a strange land forever.
The moon has stark majesty and unique properties to offer that can enrich lives. A sustainable colony will recognize that fact and bring it to life. All of this is discussed in the chapter “Care and Feeding for the People”. They are so often forgotten in the grand plans.
The Contents:
Some day we will go to space to live. Not to visit.
Not many of us will want to go there, of course, and fewer still will be given the opportunity.
Numbers won’t matter at first, though there wouldn’t be much point in the exercise if our colony weren’t eventually physically, economically, and psychologically sustainable.
The conceptual visualizations of space habitations you see suggest short-term occupation, not settlement. You don’t often see comprehensive attempts to plan a permanent settlement based on first principles using current scientific research and practical experience, even from the experts.
There’s plenty of information now for anyone interested, but any serious planning you see is necessarily fractured into its constituent disciplines. SciFi on the subject is routinely distorted by the demands of dramatic story telling.
Lacking any satisfying examples using the wealth of that data, I have ventured to fill the gap myself. My conclusions are stripped of dramatic fripperies. They are meant to stand, or fall, on whatever intrinsic merit they have.
Because the Moon must necessarily be our first destination for settlement, I have chosen it for my initial scheme. Why the Moon has primacy presents as that may be another subject for future attention, but it seems obvious beyond argument that it is.
Why do this? Reasonable conclusions, tested in some public arena, may restrain unwarranted and idle fabulation. That, in itself, is its own satisfaction.
There is a surprising amount of available material to cover in the planning for life situate in a place of constant danger much more isolated than humans have ever been.
Anyone entering upon these pages already has a consuming interest in in strange worlds and strange times. Many of those reading these pages have already considered and cast away ideas considered inadequate. When the ideas I present show up as defective, I want to do the same.
Some day we will go to space to live. Not to visit.
Not many of us will want to go there, of course, and fewer still will be given the opportunity.
Numbers won’t matter at first, though there wouldn’t be much point in the exercise if our colony weren’t eventually physically, economically, and psychologically sustainable.
The conceptual visualizations of space habitations you see suggest short-term occupation, not settlement. You don’t often see comprehensive attempts to plan a permanent settlement based on first principles using current scientific research and practical experience, even from the experts.
There’s plenty of information now for anyone interested, but any serious planning you see is necessarily fractured into its constituent disciplines. SciFi on the subject is routinely distorted by the demands of dramatic story telling.
Lacking any satisfying examples using the wealth of that data, I have ventured to fill the gap myself. My conclusions are stripped of dramatic fripperies. They are meant to stand, or fall, on whatever intrinsic merit they have.
Because the Moon must necessarily be our first destination for settlement, I have chosen it for my initial scheme. Why the Moon has primacy presents as that may be another subject for future attention, but it seems obvious beyond argument that it is.
Why do this? Reasonable conclusions, tested in some public arena, may restrain unwarranted and idle fabulation. That, in itself, is its own satisfaction.
There is a surprising amount of available material to cover in the planning for life situate in a place of constant danger much more isolated than humans have ever been.
Anyone entering upon these pages already has a consuming interest in in strange worlds and strange times. Many of those reading these pages have already considered and cast away ideas considered inadequate. When the ideas I present show up as defective, I want to do the same.
Some day we will go to space to live. Not to visit.
Not many of us will want to go there, of course, and fewer still will be given the opportunity.
Numbers won’t matter at first, though there wouldn’t be much point in the exercise if our colony weren’t eventually physically, economically, and psychologically sustainable.
The conceptual visualizations of space habitations you see suggest short-term occupation, not settlement. You don’t often see comprehensive attempts to plan a permanent settlement based on first principles using current scientific research and practical experience, even from the experts.
There’s plenty of information now for anyone interested, but any serious planning you see is necessarily fractured into its constituent disciplines. SciFi on the subject is routinely distorted by the demands of dramatic story telling.
Lacking any satisfying examples using the wealth of that data, I have ventured to fill the gap myself. My conclusions are stripped of dramatic fripperies. They are meant to stand, or fall, on whatever intrinsic merit they have.
Because the Moon must necessarily be our first destination for settlement, I have chosen it for my initial scheme. Why the Moon has primacy presents as that may be another subject for future attention, but it seems obvious beyond argument that it is.
Why do this? Reasonable conclusions, tested in some public arena, may restrain unwarranted and idle fabulation. That, in itself, is its own satisfaction.
There is a surprising amount of available material to cover in the planning for life situate in a place of constant danger much more isolated than humans have ever been.
Anyone entering upon these pages already has a consuming interest in in strange worlds and strange times. Many of those reading these pages have already considered and cast away ideas considered inadequate. When the ideas I present show up as defective, I want to do the same.
Some day we will go to space to live. Not to visit.
Not many of us will want to go there, of course, and fewer still will be given the opportunity.
Numbers won’t matter at first, though there wouldn’t be much point in the exercise if our colony weren’t eventually physically, economically, and psychologically sustainable.
The conceptual visualizations of space habitations you see suggest short-term occupation, not settlement. You don’t often see comprehensive attempts to plan a permanent settlement based on first principles using current scientific research and practical experience, even from the experts.
There’s plenty of information now for anyone interested, but any serious planning you see is necessarily fractured into its constituent disciplines. SciFi on the subject is routinely distorted by the demands of dramatic story telling.
Lacking any satisfying examples using the wealth of that data, I have ventured to fill the gap myself. My conclusions are stripped of dramatic fripperies. They are meant to stand, or fall, on whatever intrinsic merit they have.
Because the Moon must necessarily be our first destination for settlement, I have chosen it for my initial scheme. Why the Moon has primacy presents as that may be another subject for future attention, but it seems obvious beyond argument that it is.
Why do this? Reasonable conclusions, tested in some public arena, may restrain unwarranted and idle fabulation. That, in itself, is its own satisfaction.
There is a surprising amount of available material to cover in the planning for life situate in a place of constant danger much more isolated than humans have ever been.
Anyone entering upon these pages already has a consuming interest in in strange worlds and strange times. Many of those reading these pages have already considered and cast away ideas considered inadequate. When the ideas I present show up as defective, I want to do the same.
Nothing I suggest will make any sense if our Moon Colony proves impractical. No settlement can aspire to sustainability if the one essential for life is not available. That is the presence of obtainable water on the Moon. It will never be practical to lift any appreciable quantity of water above the Earth’s deep gravity well.
And, although water seems likely, at least at the poles, its existence has not been proven beyond doubt. Until that is done, there is no point in starting. History is replete with abandoned colonies that failed for want of critical resources.
Water at the poles has been indicated multiple times, but direct investigation has yet to discover actual water. India, most recently sent an expedition, But found no water. Perhaps it is hiding just out of site. American projects were proposed to send rovers there, but they have been cancelled for lack of funding.
In another attempt to prove the claim of water, a targeted drone expedition, called Lunar Flashlight, is being sent as I draft this article. It is equipped with laser imaging instruments to sense water at the South Pole of the Moon. If water is found, the next step would be polar orbiting satellites to support drones dropped on the ground to sample the ice found in their search. Perhaps, if the results are positive this time, they will send another mission that will be more elaborate than the Indian, one, which was bare bones. Let’s hope they do it that way.
A colony to support human life in space encompasses a lot of know-how, but most of it isn’t rocket science. Only one of the pieces is precisely that.
None of it requires more research and development to be immediately feasible. The science and technology to bring a Lunar settlement into fruition exists. We have been there already. We now use most of the pieces of tech we will need to safeguard people who have been delegated to do important work under adverse conditions.
That makes enabling space exploration to achieve practical results a lot easier that you would imagine. Not much cheaper, of course. But, if it’s done the way many scientists have recommended, using machines rather than people for the initial steps, not nearly as expensive as the spectacular process the bureaucrats chasing headlines have made of it.
In this we are not looking for expensive publicity. Attractive people are unnecessary at first. Later, when they must go, we will be able to cocoon them, safeguarding life the way we should. Even if we can easily convince brave people to take risks, should we? We know now that the lesser aftereffects of deep space exposure (beyond the Van Allen Belt) will expose them to more danger of early death the longer they are exposed. Even low Earth orbit, just above our blanketing atmosphere, threatens that.
The Moon is tidally locked in its rotation around the Earth. The same side always points to us. That side is continuously accessible to transmission stations positioned in appropriate positions around the globe. We have done this before. All the Moon missions used LunaNet stations positioned on many continents. It’s well-established technology. We could use semi-autonomous drones there.
The groundwork could be laid for a permanent settlement without endangering a single life.
If colonizing the Moon is ever to be practical, there must also be some economic rationale. Like everyone else, space colonies must eventually make a living. Water on the Moon would be critical to that, but it is not enough. A variety of other resources must be available, most of which have already been proven by exploration, but they would not be enough either. Survival may be the first object, but it could not persist long without products for export, whatever they may be. They would allow the Moon to become the nexus of a future space economy, providing resources from its vast storehouse of easily accessible materiel, both raw and processed, located conveniently above the gravity well.
With the Moon’s low gravity, shipment to anywhere in Earth Space would be (relatively) cheap and fast. Then, many things would become possible, including the provisioning, using unpowered pods, of a Mars colony that would have productive capacities of its own. They would allow an intensive use of space at prices impossible to beat. I won’t even try to get into the research possibilities. I don’t know enough, but one could easily imagine many possible avenues of research now selectively limited by cost.
Large, low orbit stations could be constructed with components manufactured conveniently on the Moon and boosted at low cost with catapults or spin launchers back to Earth orbit. All the advantages of microgravity manufacture and research would be easily attained. We can’t really predict what would be possible at this stage. Trade and development are like that.
We will need to let them ride free for a while, but not indefinitely. They must produce some things we need, just as we, on Earth, produce things they need. We on Earth are their only existing market. We are not likely to support them forever without some benefit.
That benefit is not as unlikely as it sounds. Their location would improve their capabilities. They will have immediate access to all the resources of space. And it’s much easier to send things down than it is to lift them. There are lots of things that that they could make and place from the Moon that are expensive for us to do here. Things like satellites and telescopes, super-pure metals, and alloys immiscible on Earth. Experiments on the ISS station have shown that manufacturing in a micro-gravity could produce some wonderful things.
Although I have prospected need from fear of extinction in my other writings, it is possible that settlement will be attempted under less than optimum conditions for reasons of material need. Such settlement has happened before in history. The country where I live, Canada, was settled by Europeans because Europe had exhausted its supply of beaver pelts and gentlemen still wanted to wear felt hats. That may now appear to you a petty reason, but I assure you, it was not considered that at the time of settlement. And for the part of America south of Canada, the lust for gold and spices was just as powerful for them.
The need might arise as a result of political conditions. Take rare earths, elements essential to modern electronics. Rare earth elements are, unsurprisingly, rare on Earth. I should qualify that. They are rare in the sense that they are not abundantly deposited like some other materials. They come in low concentrations and are hard to extract. The extraction leaves behind pollution of harmful elements. At present, because of its relative wealth of such elements, and its tolerance for the extensive pollution that its intensive extraction requires, China is the leading and, practically, only, source of such elements. There has been some action to use alternatives on an experimental basis, but they are not necessarily cheaper. These elements are only required in small quantities in each instance, but they have few viable substitutes. China is now withholding exports of the elements and it is likely that the dispute so created will worsen in the future.
If it gets bad enough, it may be that other technologically advanced countries may propose to mine these minerals on the Moon, which has demonstrated substantial deposits of what are collectively called KREEP elements. These are the rare earths, plus potassium and phosphorous. They are commonly found with radioactive substances. Of course, new methods will be needed for Moon extraction, since leaching with toxic chemicals that have moderate freezing points, requiring controlled interior processing, may not be practical there. Studies indicate that biological methods of bacterial combination, called phytoextraction, using a combination of activated bacteria facilitating the mineral uptake of super accumulating plants tailored for such use, may instead be practicable.
In truth, it may be considered alien to our mining culture to cooperate with nature in this way, using it rather than raping it, getting mediated results rather than immediate ones. Once there is a pipeline, though, there would be regular production. Maybe it is time to express our feminine side in mining.
Without such developments, though, if access to these critical elements continues to be restricted by the Chinese, such extraction may become the only practical course for many countries on Earth. No lanthanides, no advanced electronics. This technology is recognized, but its application is presently in its infancy. This approach will not be a quick fix. It will take years and likely decades to organize. Yet, the source is on the moon, the need will likely be continuing, and the way back down the gravity mountain is much easier and cheaper than the climb up.
On the Moon, there would be no issues of pollution resulting from disposition of toxic components, and the minerals would be of high enough value to warrant their transshipment back down to Earth, where they would be likely sent by unpowered pods.
I don’t speak blithely of such delivery mechanisms, though. That will be complicated, too. To deliver materials from a lunar processing plant to a field in Texas, say, will not be automatic. Perhaps it will need a manned station in space. Delivery and infrastructure is often minimized, but they are as expensive for ‘free’ resources as they are for costly ones, however we measure the cost. Think of the ‘free’ renewable resources we are deploying now.
There are many critical minerals whose extraction causes toxic pollution, and there is a waning tolerance for such ill effects worldwide. Maybe it is time to invest in alternate means of extraction, whether we go the Moon or not. Maybe, in this instance, we should not look for pie in the sky, even if it is possible.
While the US, and Canada, and other countries too, do have deposits of such minerals, there has always been opposition to the continued operation of the highly polluting mines and the dangerous health effects imposed on the workers using existing technology. The result has been that the Chinese have taken up the slack because they are more tolerant to pollution, to the strategic disadvantage of the West.
In closing this subject, I should also mention that a cardinal disadvantage of rare earth mining on Earth would be an advantage on the Moon. These elements are often associated with radioactive materials that cause a lot of problems on Earth. Witness the cancer villages in China. On the Moon, such concentration would be an advantage, providing fissile materials, which would be handy to have on the Moon. There is no guarantee that fusion reactors will be available anytime soon, and the problem with sunlight on the Moon is that it is only available uninterrupted at the north and south poles. Nuclear power would be necessary at other locations.
But, it may still be thought desirable, and the powers that be may try it. Under such circumstances of exploitation, you can’t really expect a culture of settlement. The mining camps might well be rough and ready with miners sent for periodic stints. This might not ever come to pass, though. The Chinese might cave to the alternate source and increase the access and lower their prices. We’ll need to wait to see how that turns out.
Bottom line is that they are rare earths after all, and new uses are continually being developed for their extraordinary properties.
The Moon does have undeniable advantages as a mining site. No problems of pollution where there is no water cycle and no nimby complaints from the neighbors. Whatever process is used, there will be at least some toxic byproducts, even if much reduced. When it has delayed space settlement, the US might find itself backing into a makeshift colony on the Moon. Private interests now active in space will complicate the issue. Space resources are there for the taking by private actors in the present state of the law. The divine comedy plays again. It will not be the first time.
Notwithstanding all these conflicting arguments, Moon settlement is still a reasonable investment to make considering its primary benefits, the relatively low initial cost of operations, the expenses we are already incurring, and the collateral benefit of species survival.
Such a colony, if viable, might protect Humanity’s existence from extinction if tough times come. Remember all those nightmares some astronomers, and some geologists, have. Remember the Pale Blue Dot. We’d need to survive to spend the money, right? That’s worth a little.
As we said, water is essential. The quantities a settlement would need are impractical to transport. It is heavy and not compressible. It will never be feasible to lift such supplies from Earth for a space colony
It shouldn’t be an insoluble problem, but it could be a difficult one. There is lots of water, hydrogen, and oxygen on the Moon. Too bad the water we see is so disbursed. Since it’s everywhere you can’t get it anywhere. We need collected water we can pump or mine. That’s what Flashlight is about.
Most of the other necessary resources will almost certainly be available using known chemical extraction techniques. We have assays from the Lunar samples the Apollo missions have brought back. They came from specific locations at the lunar sites, of course, and the Moon is a big planet. Small as it is in diameter, it has the land area of Asia, a big continent.
It would be helpful to have more samples from other places, but radiological and optical surveys have already indicated a wide variety of resources. The actual mining will be difficult and expensive, but much cheaper than sending supplies up from Earth. And, aside from some elements we have mentioned that seem irreplaceable, for other elements there is another bonus. That is the purity and uniformity that is achievable in an anhydrous oxygen-free environment. We could and make some incredible products there. For example, without atmospheric inclusions, inevitable on Earth, glass could be as strong as steel.
Various spacecraft-based missions have indicated that water exists at the North and South poles of the Moon in deep craters permanently sheltered from the Sun, That’s where the Flashlight is headed. We’ll need to wait for that shovel, though. As we noted, the water is obvious but remains beyond our grasp. Until we get a sample, we will not be able to count on speculation, however seductive and convincing.
No water, no people.
We have already established that the Moon colony is going to supply itself with most everything it needs to survive. That is going to take a lot of development work. It’s going to require mines and factories, farms, and labs.
We need to source the remaining big four resources. They are air, power, and shelter. There’s one out ot the list because it isn’t really a resource, but it a way to save resources. That is efficient recycling. Let’s leave shelter to last because it is the easiest. It’ll still be expensive, though. Isn’t it always?
As in everything, it is the details that are the hardest. Air means oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen is easy on the moon. Nitrogen is not. There are no known sources of gaseous nitrogen on the Moon, but there may be mineral resources. The prevailing theory is that the moon was hived off the Earth in a massive impact several billion years ago. So, there definitely are probabilities. If the moon comes from the same stuff as earth, it may be underground even though it is not noticeable on the surface.
Leaving out the nitrogen and using pure oxygen environments is not practical. It’s not healthy to breath for extended periods. Oxygen is a very reactive gas, and it’s dangerous in high concentration, degrading many substances. Adding a neutral buffering gas like nitrogen makes it safer. Nitrogen is also handy to have around when you are growing plants. So, air may be a problem, requiring partial supply from Earth, at first. One benefit of its neutrality is that it is recoverable.
Next is power. That’s one of the easiest problems to solve on a planet and location with constant sunlight of the highest intensity. If they feel a need for backup, there’s also nuclear power and even Sterling engine power which uses difference in temperatures for fuel. That’s easy where near absolute zero exists right next to full solar radiance.
Next are facilities for highly efficient recovery of elements from wastes. That’s existing technology too, although it’s not much used because it’s so expensive. Costs are relative, though. Efficient recovery is essential on the Moon. Since the most efficient recovery processes use elevated temperature and pressure to break down waste compounds to elements again, it’s dangerous to have around, but that wouldn’t be a problem there. Explosions some distance from the base wouldn’t be tricky as they are on crowded Earth. There’s lots of empty space there. And there’s no atmosphere to speak of to spread blast waves.
I said that I would save shelter for the last because it’s so easy. In my other writings, I suggested buried habitats in blasted trenches and supplemented them with settlements built in lava tubes. I will have more on the tubes, which have just come into the news again, a little later.
Humans have been building homes for a long time. And before us, Mammalia and Reptilia were doing the same. They built the same kinds of nests and burrows we will use to protect our settlers from the elements. The dangerous elements on the Moon are invisible, but we need protection from them the same way our ancestors need protection from their elements. They are deadly, just like cold and rain can be.
Building is something we know how to do. And everywhere, we have taken local conditions into account. Where it rains, we make our houses waterproof, where it’s cold, we insulate and warm them, and where there’s a lot of solar radiation, we will make the walls thick to shield us from that destructive radiance. On the moon, the looming threat is not the temperature or the elements, although on a planet with negligible atmosphere it varies widely, we have at hand the means to deal with that. The unresolved problem is that there are other kinds of rain there. They are radiation, micrometeorites, and not so micro meteorites.
The first habitations will be located near essential resources, and there may not be lava tubes there. At first, transport will be difficult and expensive. Remember the Moon landings were at carefully selected sites, where it was easy to move around. Most of the Moon’s surface is much more challenging to negotiate. There are no roads or corridors of flat smooth spaces, even though they look like that from Earth, but there is a way for that too. More later.
The only practical way to protect our colonists with present technology is to use passive shielding of sufficient depth. That would be easy on the Moon. We need to build underground because we need to protect our colonists from those pervasive effects of radiation and those meteorites we spoke of. The Moon does not have the protecting atmosphere of Earth to cushion them from meteorites coming in at tens of miles per second.
The radiation includes solar radiation, damaging enough to sicken and kill, and cosmic radiation, which is even more destructive and invasive. The levels are hundreds of times what we evolved to tolerate on Earth. Yet they are easy to avoid if you shield yourself. There is lots of materiel for that easily available for free.
The technology of blasting trenches is well understood. It has long been used in mining and construction. The science of explosives builds on centuries of experience, and its tools will be even more effective in the Moon’s low gravity. It would be easy work to prepare trenches of almost any size and cover them with Lunar regolith over prefabricated Quonset frames, the shielding dust being stabilized by sintering with microwave heaters. The framing could use traditional methods of roof support. The trusses could be prefabricated, cast in forms, like concrete is, using sintered regolith. Sintering is a process well understood in the production of bricks and pottery. Studies have shown that production of a concrete-like material is practical using these easily available materials. Traditional designs could be used to fabricate arches with considerable capacities without the use of stress tolerant materials. The Romans did it, so can we.
If considered necessary, rebar could be fabricated to provide stress tolerance from local materials as well. Since the trusses would be under the shields, you wouldn’t need to factor the slow process of radiation embrittlement that eventually robs metallic structures of their inherent flexibility and leads to stress fractures. And, of course, there is no moisture to cause corrosion. If it is thought necessary for large spans, an alternative could use the Moon’s prevalent silicates, fabricating fiberglass, which can be pretty good at low temperature as long as it is protected from the sun, which it would be as embedded reinforcement. Bottom line is that it could be done.
The shield depth would be five meters. That’s very thick, but you need it to go right through the unconsolidated regolith to solid soil. It’s loose for a reason, and it isn’t worms. What tills the soil there is the constant (on a geological timeline) impact of those tiny meteorites with an outsized punch. The affected layer easily comprises two meters, with a little less at our polar sites. It seems obvious that getting below the Moon’s unconsolidated depth is what you need to protect against micrometeorite damage.
Sizeable meteorites are another thing entirely. There is no practical protection from them apart from replication. However impractically deep we go there may be an impactor big enough to hit us in prospect. Of course larger impactors are rare, but that is why we must have two sites eventually. The other will be at the other predicted source of water at the North Pole.
The constant barrage of impactors penetrates most places on the Moon. It will be heaviest at equator, but will still be a danger at the poles, even if lesser. Meteorites cause weathering on a planet that has no weather. A contrary factor is that radiation is more intense at the poles where the first settlements are likely to be. The extra shielding over the two-meter minimum is thus accomplishing several purposes. Precision digging is easier in undisturbed soil anyway, and it all fits quite well. It’s not challenging work to do, but it’s the sort of work better done with drones.
There are also alternative sites for settlement in prospect. Lava tubes are now being touted as another site for settlement. As I pen this article, a probable, sizeable, lava tube has been postulated under the Sea of Tranquility using a study of Apollo radio signal intensity. It indicates a hollow area under the surface. Such caverns do provide free space underground to protect settlers, but their locations may not be convenient.
Lava tubes are associated with volcanic activity. The craters where we hope to get our water were quite probably created by impacts, not volcanoes. The tubes are formed when lava excavates passages underground. Their placement violates the general rule that people should live near resources. The frozen water thought to be situated at the poles is a necessary resource. Ignoring that is asking for trouble.
Whichever type of underground residence we construct, it should be generous in size. People who live inside indefinitely need lots of interior space. That isn’t counting space for laboratory and manufacturing facilities. Easy enough to do. Space doesn’t come at an excessive cost on the Moon. There is land enough there cover most of Asia. And you’re not going to annoy the neighbors.
Surrounding it should be a ‘moat’ of sintered paving stones to protect the inhabitants against another persistent danger, silicosis, which results from intrusion and resultant exposure to the pervasive Lunar dust. In Apollo missions, it has proven a major nuisance and potential danger. For permanent residents it would be more so. The microscopic-sized dust gets into everything. Occasionally, people will need to be sent out, notwithstanding the danger, to do essential maintenance impossible by other means. It would be helpful to be able to avoid raising the dust rather than face dealing with it in quantity. It’s always about and electrostatic measures will be needed to minimize its intrusion on walkabouts in any case. You don’t want it inside.
Since bulk supplies are too expensive to send from Earth, we will need to conserve and reuse as many necessaries as we can. We won’t need to supply our new habitats with recovery systems much better than the ninety-eight percent they have already achieved on the International Space Station. They will need to supplement that with elemental recovery systems from gas and waste. We have already spoken of that. Nitrogen will become as valuable as gold. Almost everything else will be available to efficient extraction and mining from Lunar Soil,. But as I have said above, Nitrogen will be a problem. Rigorous conservation may be the only course available. Carbon, also thought to be rare on the Moon, poses a similar problem. Unsurprisingly, the elements of life are scarce there.
In the future, we may be able to reach out and take supplies from asteroids, but we are far from being able to mine asteroids now. It is much cheaper, even, to bring supplies from Earth. At least we know they are there. We may see orbital tankers dipping into the Earth’s atmosphere to scoop air for processing in the same way that has been postulated to collect helium two from the atmosphere of Jupiter. Maybe they will do that with Venus someday. In the meantime, though, it may be most practical to lay in a supply of both elements. Gas is compressible.
Once the irreducible needs are taken care of, we will need to tend to the social, health and psychological needs of the colonists. They are no less important if we want the colonists to stay effective over the long haul. It has been proven many times that people need more than food and basic shelter to survive and thrive.
That is why we must provide interior space as well as sensory-expanding experiences to offset the lack of wandering room. People need that. Living in a tin can, no matter how big, will be inherently stressful after a while. People living under such conditions are prone to depression, frustration, and loneliness. It is just logical to invest in our settlers’ satisfaction and contentment.
At South Pole stations on Earth, and on Nuclear submarines on long missions, gourmet food has proven its value to enrich peoples’ lives and improve their morale. It provides breadth of experience in a restricted environment. Since the Moon colony will need to grow its own food, there will be fresh food available. An expert chef can make that into a feast.
A person like that is a sound investment in an isolated environment. Progress in replacing animal protein food essential to our dealing with global warming will add to their choices, and the technology developed to facilitate that will be increasingly available. That gourmet food should be eaten in a roomy and cheerful dining area that facilitates group interactions. Easy, since the colonists will already have been selected for congeniality.
The food will be grown in horticultural areas segregated from the living areas and protected by biological barriers so that any contagion will not be spread. They will need three types of growing media. Hydroponics, soil agriculture, and aquaculture for fish and fertilizer. Hydroponics is often pictured as the sole answer, but it won’t support vital grain crops or produce fish protein. There should be at least two of these areas, isolated from one another. Three would be better still. The configuration of the living and growing areas could be as spokes on a wheel. No matter what happens, we must make sure that some food is available. We are thinking of survival. There may be no help from Earth. The agricultural areas may also be used for recreation. People love flowers and greenery.
The next requirement will be the need for regular exercise for people living on a fifteen percent gravity planet. It might be possible in a few years to augment bone mass with genetic manipulation, but it would be possible now to make heavier bone structure a factor in the selection of candidates.
Whatever the result, it has been proven that constant and unremitting weight training and cardiovascular exercise is essential to health in a low gravity environment. NASA has developed a number of air pressure-based machines, and the good old fiberglass and spring driven resistance machines still work. Because of the discrepancy between Earth-referenced weight and innate mass on the Moon, old fashioned weights are out. A swimming pool would also be particularly good exercise. The surface tension of water doesn’t change in low gravity. Sports could also be a focus of exercise.
The colony should be supplied with a large gym so many people could exercise at once. If enough space is allocated, there will be room for new sorts of activities, including low gravity gymnastics and tumbling. Anything original and fun will increase group cohesion. Intra-mural sports leagues are a promising idea too. Space to play team sports would facilitate that.
The Moon is not Earth. But that could be seen as a good thing. It may not offer the freedom of movement and feeling of space the Earth does, but it has many unique properties Earth does not have, and it could allow experiences that are not available on Earth. As already suggested, the low gravity of the Moon could facilitate gymnastics, swimming, and flying sports impossible on Earth.
The gym they build to exercise the colonists should provide high clearance to allow low gravity trapeze routines, tumbling and aeronautics you can’t do on Earth. If you’ve ever seen the ‘Ender’s Game’ battle school scenes or a watched a clip of a NASA space walk, you’ll know the wonders that can be performed in microgravity. The partial gravity of the Moon will allow permutations of those movements. They will be as exhilarating to the inhabitants of the Moon as they were to those real and imagined participants. They will allow the development of sports than cannot be played anywhere else, and we can expect they will be delighted in them too.
Swimming and diving, especially water polo, would become as much aerobatic sports as swimming sports. The moon’s low gravity, boosted by the unchanged density of water, would allow participants to rise far out of the water. The low gravity, possibly enabled by the sort of large interior spaces lava tubes on the Moon might offer, would afford space for human flight if the interior spaces were pressurized with air at Earthly densities. Huge wings would grab enough air to make that possible. Some of us already dream of flight. It must be the result of some elemental desire that will make some dreams come true. That is the stuff of happiness.
The point of all this is not just recreation, but the creation of a culture that believes itself graced by the opportunity to live in a place with unique opportunities that they call home. They will then be not just setters on the Moon, but Lunarians, living on their own land. That is a formula for permanence.
The last need is for personal space. That ability to be alone in a crowded colony will be inordinately valuable. Individual apartments, no matter how small they need to be, would facilitate that. Nesting them and then drawing them out will help people cope with the isolation. Video games, the more inclusive the better, will be popular.
In my books, I have suggested that a certain amount of wanderlust might be satisfied by distributing miniature solar powered cameras all over the area of the colony and perhaps beyond. That might prove practical if the cameras are cheap enough. These could be tied to an inclusive experience that would allow the player to experience outdoors on the Moon without venturing out into the radiation.
We are a species that has always lived outdoors. It is inconceivable that we could exist happily indefinitely without any outdoor experience. The people on the Moon may never be able to live outside. The environment precludes that. It does not mean, though, that they cannot have outdoor experiences. We should do everything we can to facilitate a satisfying and full life for them, even if it must be virtual.
The pioneers, the trailblazers, will go to the Moon in ships like the ones we have now. They provide minimal protection for their passengers, but since most trips have been short, with fairly short exposure times, and the passengers have largely been military personnel, the dangers of travelling in what amounts to deep space have been tolerable. For the people who send them there, anyway.
When we transport civilian settlers to the Moon, and, eventually, beyond, we must offer them much better protection. With the motive resources we have now, which consist mostly of chemical rockets, we can’t do any more than we are doing, providing the minimal protection of light metal spaceship walls. Plans now involve water-shielded redoubts for solar flares. The weighty passive shielding we really need isn’t practical with present technology because we can’t move it.
Research is being done on non-chemical rockets that use accelerated atomic particles, plasma. They can be accelerated and directed by electromagnets. Presently the only practical propulsors that use such tech are ion engines. They provide economic power over a long time, but their output is very modest when compared to rocket engines. They are being improved, and it is fairly likely that powerful plasma engines that produce reasonable velocities are coming. They will be powered by some variety of nuclear power, fission, or, perhaps fusion, if or when it is perfected.
In space, shielding mass could be minimized to useable mass by using lightweight hydrocarbon aggregate for the concrete used as shielding. It stops the lighter particles shot out by the Sun better, while the cement component provides the mass to stop the more invasive and destructive ‘Cosmic Rays’ made up of high-speed heavy particles.
For longer trips, it may be possible to use the extended thrust capability to produce some artificial gravity and minimize microgravity side-effects. Perhaps it would be possible to minimize passage times too and get a double bonus from the increased thrust.
Under the general rubric of transportation, we also discuss the question of local transportation. Not all the resources needed are going to be underfoot. The Moon has at least as big a surface area as Asia. Miners will need to travel to extract the minerals they need, and the local environment, rugged as it is, strewn with craters and boulders, cut by mountains and huge precipitous cliffs and rilles, is not an accommodating place to construct traditional roads and railroads. Our colonists may find themselves taking to the skies to launch unpowered ‘gliders’ using the long, delicate-looking magnetic catapults low gravity allows, from ramp to ramp, for everyday transportation. The Moon’s gravity would facilitate such transport, and continuous access to solar energy could supply the power. Of course, you couldn’t travel at will that way, you would need an established destination with its own ramp to receive the vehicle. Our colonists might find themselves using the cheap way for utility and the rocket transport for exploration. After all, they would have plenty of fuel from the water they distill.
What is all this in aid of? As we mentioned at the beginning, everyone must make a living -even space colonists.
The Moon will have unique advantages among the colonies. Its partial gravity, its nearness to Earth, and its access to land and resources. It will be able to produce many things the other settlements will have trouble with. At the bringing, this will be principally food, and resources produced above the gravity well of Earth, to supply to the near Earth stations, and to supply Mars as it tools up. Its manufactures, super strong, high purity tools, and machines, as well as satellites, will be unequalled. No doubt other supplies and services will be devised. No worry about making ends meet, I think. There will be a self-sufficient space economy before too long. Just like was the case with early trade on Earth, the distances will be secondary to the cost for products no other colony could duplicate for the price. The Moon will make its way.
It is possible to settle in space without extraordinary sacrifice if we manage our efforts and husband our resources, proceeding carefully using existing equipment and techniques. All this would be much easier if the space-faring community of nations could consent to share the resources as agreed in existing space treaties rather than trying to hijack water resources before others grab them.
What use is there in competing and fighting over speculative resources? Are the differences between us so great as to impede our common objective?
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