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Comment by stickfigure | Hacker News Reader

Yes? Why do we need to colonize the moon with squishy meatbags with billions of years of evolutionary optimization for life on Earth?

All these dreams of star-trek like interstellar travel (or even interplanetary travel beyond taking a selfie and going home) require major advances in the physics tech tree. Might come, might not.

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A lot of manufacturing processes are easier without an atmosphere. Also low gravity makes it easy to launch completed product out to space for future space missions

Which manufacturing processes are easier w/o an atmosphere? We've placed objects in planetary orbits for 75 years now. If there was an obvious economic benefit to a manufacturing process outside of 1G, then we'd have had a business actively exploiting that opportunity for profit.

ZBLAN, a high quality optic fibre, can be made in space with fewer defects. A process that is in the process of being exploited.

Though the rather limited space on the ISS and its imminent decommissioning complicate that a bit. I think the current plan is to launch satellites for commercial production

Maybe, but the shipping costs are killer and physics puts a hard minimum on the price.

We have plenty of earthbound motivation to solve the "energy too cheap to meter" problem. We're nowhere near that. Adding one more big energy consumer (moving cargo to/from orbit) does not make a material difference.

What's your hard minimum on price?

Starship is supposed (Musk hype warning!) to be 1/10th to 1/100th the cost.

We haven't done skyhooks or launch loops or launch cannons, which are large upfront projects but once built are semi-permanent economic gamechangers.

> A lot of manufacturing processes are easier without an atmosphere. Also low gravity makes it easy to launch completed product out to space for future space missions

I always felt like that was a backwards justification for going to space (we want to go to space, how do we sell it), rather than a real need to that would push people to go to space.

Unless the raw materials are also on the moon, putting the manufacturing equipment on the lunar surface instead of in low Earth orbit might actually make sending it further out more expensive, not less. Because of the Oberth effect.

The raw has to be on the moon at least the heavy stuff. Otherwise you are right makes no sense

Would you not like to see major advances in the physics tech tree? The way you get those advancements, is to have a goal. And funding.

A moon colonization program provides both.

To use video games as an analogy: You can't invest all your resources racing up one tech tree; you have to build the whole economic engine to achieve those later levels.

"Moon base that produces positive economic benefit" is about 10 steps up a very expensive tech tree and we don't even know what the rungs are.

I also don't think this is very imaginative. If you want to colonize the moon, why send a man in a can? How about genetically engineering a human-ish that's better adapted to that kind of environment? That's the kind of technology advancement that makes manned interplanetary missions reachable.

> You can't invest all your resources racing up one tech tree; you have to build the whole economic engine to achieve those later levels.

The exact opposite of that has been the meta in most 4X games I've played.

You always rush specific techs because you understand the ROI for the specific empire you're going for. That involves specialization.

Apollo allowed America to demonstrate its ability to land a rocket with pinpoint accuracy on the Moon, implying it would be easier to land an ICBM on the Soviets.

The USSR got a large PR boost through launching Sputnik and then a person. It convinced many people communism was a superior ideology for advancing science and technology. Turning it into a "Space Race" allowed the USA to reframe the discussion for the world in a way that let America catch up.

> Why do we need to colonize the moon with squishy meatbags with billions of years of evolutionary optimization for life on Earth?

Given current American politics, I'm honestly divided on whether we should colonise the Moon. That someone will do it seems pretty obvious.

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