Moon
From NewMars
To many of the New Mars Community the Moon is the next best place to go in the solar system besides Mars. The Moon is too resource poor to support a colony of a significant size while Mars is too far a way to make a significant contribution to the economy of Earth. Mars promises a second civilization while the Moon promises a large industrial centre in close vicinity to Earth.
Resource Poor
While the Moon has resources that can be utilized in space such as oxygen, silicon, aluminium, platinum, and deuterium, the Moon is resource poor. The supposed quantity of water on the Moon only amounts to a large lake and it is spread over a large region and mixed with dirt. The only known carbon on the Moon is the negligible quantity that gets deposited in the dust from the solar wind.
With suitable infrastructure the hydrogen on the Moon, perhaps mixed with oxygen can be used as rocket fuel to support space operations in the Earth-Moon region. The platinum could be potentially mined for use on Earth if demand on Earth increases due to an increased production of fuel cells.
However, one very important isotope, Helium-3 (3He) can't be found on Earth, but is quite abundent on the surface of the Moon (estimated to 1 million tons of 3He). It is trapped and deposited there by the solar wind. It is very important for nuclear fusion, because is the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, with no radioactive by-product (3He fusion with deuterium is aneutronic - doesn't produce neutrons).
Radio Astronomy
One advantage of the Moon over many other destinations is radio astronomy. The Moon blocks out much of the artificial radio noise produced by Earth devices such as television, radar and radio. Thus the far side of the Moon is an idea place for radio astronomy.
External Links
- Numbers comparing Earth to the Moon form [NASA]
- Encyclopedia Astronautica
