Space Colonies-Lunar Base

I don't remember rock lizards, either, but I do remember somebody writing about little eggs that hatched into big mean invisible rock-eating monsters that banged the living hell out of airlock doors. Not sure whether that was Heinlein or not, though.

Oh, and Texan: I was giving you a hard time with the whole "darkside" thing. But that is one of my minor pet peeves.

And I'm not sure when we're planning to send another probe to the Lunar South Pole, but NASA already took care of the whole shebang with Lunar Prospector:

EUREKA! ICE FOUND AT LUNAR POLES ( http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/results/ice/eureka.htm )

The Lunar Prospector mission ended 31 July 1999, with the spacecraft impacting the Moon near the South Pole of the Moon. ( http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/datavis/locpos.htm )

Oh, and TJ: Unfortunately, the various probes we've sent to Luna and Mars have mapped their respective globes too thoroughly and too quickly for there to be an alien base on the surface of either planet. However, as for subterranean bases, there is no evidence of their existence, but neither is there evidence proving otherwise....

The jury's still out, and always will be, as is the case with the Life on Mars problem: it's easy to prove that there's life on Mars (just find a bacteria or even just a spore of some sort); however, it's impossible to prove that there isn't, unless you check the subatomic structure of every molecule that makes up the planet -- which is so impractical as to be impossible. So no matter how hard we look, people can still claim that there's life on Mars/Luna/Venus/Titan/Europa/in the gas clouds of Jupiter, and we just haven't looked in quite the right place yet. You can never conclusively prove that there's not.

Yep, absence of proof, is not proof of absence.

O.K. it took a month and had to re-read parts of 'The Past Through Tomorrow along with Expanded Universe, Space Cadet, The Rolling Stones, Starman Jones, The Star Beast, Time For The Stars, Red Planet, Between Planets, Farmer In The Sky before finally finding this: "Martians prosper in near vacuum, the rock lizards of Luna do not breathe at all." towards the end of the third paragraph of chapter two of Tunnel In The Sky.

I was beginning to doubt myself there since I was sure it wasn't in any of his larger books other than maybe The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress but that didn't feel right. I couldn't tell you when I last read 'Tunnel' but I started reading Heinlein about 25 years ago. It's pretty funny how an unbelievably minor thing can stick in someones memory though. It's been an enjoyable month of reading though.

I don't know wether I have asked it already - has there been a visit at the homepage of the Lunar Reclamation Society by participants of the discussions here?

They have a large number of projects worked out and documented there - including one concerning colonies on the Galileian moons of Jupiter and especially Europa.

They have done a lot of work really and it might be interesting to refer to it here - especially under the aspect what private spacecrafts and space travels might contribute to let it become reality and what advantages it might provide for space tourism.

In the discussion(s) concerning lunar property rights under a certain aspect some of the documents perhaps might be useful too.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

The title of this thread sounds as if a talk about space colonies is linked to the talk about a lunar base.

So what about colonies in space really - instead of on any planetary szrface or in any orbit around any planet? As preparation, lab, experiment or so?

There is one Near Earth Object at least that orbits the sun in nearly the same period as Earth - the difference is a few days only. What about instaling a small base there first? The base should be inhabited during sufficient proximity to Earth only.

This way the costs caused by the lunar gravity could be avoided during experimental and tet phases.

What about it?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)