[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;52968811]Helium mining[/QUOTE]
Helium-3 mining on the Moon is a snake oil meme that really needs to die already.
1. There's not much Helium-3 on the Moon. It's 1.5 to 15 parts per [i]billion[/i].
2. We can produce it domestically, through artificial processes, for a lot less than setting up a Moon colony.
3. We don't have [i]any[/i] use for it, its presumed value is for a purely hypothetical He3 fusion reactor that for all we know will never be possible.
There are legitimate reasons to go back to the Moon. Mining He3 isn't one of them.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;52969652]IIRC, the Moon has tons and tons of Rare Earth Metals which currently China has almost a world-wide monopoly on.
By opening the door to excavate and mine the moon, we could potentially break China's hold on the materials, not only fueling the economy but pouring in these materials for new technology research.
China has a habit of holding exports to other countries of these things for various reasons and sometimes "just cuz", so it's pretty crucial that the rest of the world gets access to them.[/QUOTE]
China doesn't have a monopoly on rare earth materials. They have a monopoly on the production of rare earth materials.
This is an important distinction in this circumstance. China's government essentially owns all of the rare earth production globally. They do this by subsidizing sales any times a competitor arrives.
You build a mine and begin selling rare earth materials? China's government intentionally crashes the market by releasing impossibly cheap rare earth materials into the market until your mine folds. Then they return the price to normal. This is normal operation for the Chinese gov.
[QUOTE=Sableye;52985940]Absolutely not, in fact this delays things somewhat. NASA doesnt have a lunar lander or anything on the drawing board to actually carry this out. It took ten years to develope the orion capsule and its not even done yet because the expedited money from the end of the shuttle got burned up in defense spending instead leavig its development underfunded for years. Its like telling columbus to go ahead and set sail but not giving him the money and ships to do it[/QUOTE]
I wrote that comment on my phone and late at night, so maybe it's just hard to actually understand, but if you read my other posts it's pretty clear that I'm in favour of actually giving NASA some money. I'm saying the money needed to do a manned moon mission within a reasonable time frame actually wouldn't contribute much to the deficit at all, especially compared to the money being doled out to, say, the military.
[editline]18th December 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=cdr248;52987748]The [I]deficit [/I]is supposed to balloon because of the current tax plan and will probably get worse with the increase in defense (and potentially, Wall) spending. It just doesn't seem like a good time to be looking into manned missions imo.[/QUOTE]
Again, Trump saying this doesn't change NASA's budget at all. NASA has been "looking into" (by presidential decree) manned missions to the moon and Mars since the early 90's afaik - NASA's budget is magically still pretty tiny. I'm sorry for a badly written post.
[QUOTE=GunFox;52987941]China doesn't have a monopoly on rare earth materials. They have a monopoly on the production of rare earth materials.
This is an important distinction in this circumstance. China's government essentially owns all of the rare earth production globally. They do this by subsidizing sales any times a competitor arrives.
You build a mine and begin selling rare earth materials? China's government intentionally crashes the market by releasing impossibly cheap rare earth materials into the market until your mine folds. Then they return the price to normal. This is normal operation for the Chinese gov.[/QUOTE]
Ya the US mines which produced the stuff for damn near half a century are more than capable of meeting china's production and there was a company trying to do it smarter using better safer and cleaner extraction techniques but I don't know what ever happened to them.
Currently the chinese production of rare earths would make the soviets even recoil, the city that produces them is travel restricted, so no going in, no going out, they pump all the sludge into one giant catch basin, and their mine produces ample amounts of radioactive thorium tailings that china just dumps into the catch basin even though better extraction techniques would let them grab more rare earths from that waste.
Overall its a monumental environmental disaster waiting to kill everyone around it
Can't wait to see a trump tower pop up on the moon
It took me a while (seriously) to realize it, but the moon is gonna kinda suck for ISRU, especially compared to Mars. Lots more sparse, and going to be quite a bit more difficult to find things like water ice
[QUOTE=meharryp;52968801]What's the point though? Is there actually anything left to do on the moon?[/QUOTE]
trump needs a place to spend the rest of his days in exile
The moon is boring, thanks Futurama.
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;52969868]Hey here's an idea why don't we have the actual scientists set their priorities instead of letting the anti-science orangutan decide?[/QUOTE]
Better idea; why don't we start with him?
Go to the moon and get rid of the nazi ufos up there! Make the moon great again!
Why not send them anyway? They might find some ayys
[QUOTE=0Hotpocket0;53011964]Why not send them anyway? They might find some ayys[/QUOTE]
There are no ayys on the moon, not since NASA bombed them in '2009 :v
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