So, what to talk about tonight?\u00a0 I\u2019m kinda at a loss.\u00a0 I\u2019m not in the politics mood.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t figured out the next chapters in the stories I\u2019ve been spinning.\u00a0 Not much going on around the Compound today and even the First Selectman has been on his best behavior and hasn\u2019t eaten anyone in a few weeks.\u00a0 I guess things are in a lull right now.<\/p>\n
So, I was thinking with all the talk about Elon Musk getting us to Mars was that really the space mission we need?\u00a0 I think not.\u00a0 What would be better and much easier would be to build a Moon base.\u00a0 The space station we have now is a lame piece of junk that is more trouble than its worth.\u00a0 And living in free fall is really bad for humans.\u00a0 But a permanent base on the Moon is much easier than a Mars trip, much cheaper and much less risky for the astronauts.<\/p>\n
Of course, the real reason why this base would be so valuable won\u2019t appear until a magnetic survey is performed and a strange \u201canomaly\u201d discovered.\u00a0 Once this mystery is investigated and the signal is tracked back to a Jovian (or is it a Saturnian) moon the real exploration of the solar system will begin in earnest.\u00a0 All we need to remember is not to drive the ship\u2019s AI psychotic with conflicting mission requirements and also make a point of not teaching it to read lips.<\/p>\n
But seriously (or semi-seriously), I think a Moon base is a much more realistic space project and putting stuff on the Moon instead of in Earth orbit is probably a good idea in general.\u00a0 There\u2019s just too much junk floating around up there.<\/p>\n
As for the name, Luna City is one obvious choice.\u00a0 I could be convinced that Sheepshead Bay would sound good.\u00a0 After all there are a lot of Mares up there so a seaside name makes some sense.<\/p>\n
But the most important thing that a lunar base would provide is a chance to see if space travel is useful at all.\u00a0 Can a base on the close-by Moon come up with anything useful that can\u2019t be done better and cheaper on Earth?<\/p>\n
One thing I can think of are particle accelerators.\u00a0 Maintaining a vacuum on the Moon will be a heck of a lot easier than on Earth.\u00a0 And the lower gravity might have some advantages in certain kinds of construction.\u00a0 And there are probably other scientific experiments that can be done better on the Moon.\u00a0 Maybe the long lunar night would be a great time to do telescopic observations.\u00a0 Instead of the Hubble and Webb space telescopes maybe we could build a really big telescope on the Moon and see right out to the edge of the universe.\u00a0 Of course, we might not like what we find on \u201cthe edge.\u201d\u00a0 We might find that the galaxies are arranged to spell out the words, \u201cTO READ BEYOND THIS POINT YOU MUST BUY A SUBSCRIPTION!\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, anyway, that\u2019s what I was thinking.\u00a0 The Moon\u2019s the perfect compromise between the fantastically risky Mars mission and the useless and boring International Space Station.\u00a0 Come on Elon, baby steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, what to talk about tonight?\u00a0 I\u2019m kinda at a loss.\u00a0 I\u2019m not in the politics mood.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t figured out the next chapters in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3545],"tags":[2517,4931,3892],"class_list":["post-33475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-science","tag-elon-musk","tag-moon","tag-space-travel"],"yoast_head":"\n