Most of the main Green policies are terrifying

Just think for a moment about the effects industry is going to have. In order to make it financially viable, it will be the quickest and dirtiest kind of operation possible. It will be massive-scale open cast mining because the concentrations of minerals in the moon are going to be very, very low. You don't get mineral veins on the moon, they're generated by geological processes that only occur on tectonically active bodies. The moon has a higher concentration of certain elements that exist in the crust but those concentrations are still very, very low. A huge amount of material would have to be displaced. In order to minimise the transportation costs, all of that material would have to be processed on the moon, so that's more structures that have to be built. An incredible amount of waste would be generated that can't be transported back to the earth because it's too expensive, so that's dumped there too. You'll need accommodation for humans and probably some kind of farm to grow food to again minimise transportation costs. And once again, all of this generates yet more waste. The travel itself is going to have an impact across the moon - it might not have an atmosphere but partially because of this, ejecta from high above the surface can reach any part of the lunar surface. And again, you don't need a visible layer of material to constitute contamination. We're talking about part-per-trillion level precision in some measurements.

Yeah... the value of the helium 3, and the unlimited free energy and transcendance of energy limits that we currently face is vastly more important than whatever pleasure treehugging nerds will get from .. "examining" lunar rocks.

No, that is not the law of life. That's the law of 20th Century life. That is not a sustainable law.



He's not right at all. Most of the Earth is totally inaccessible to humans and always will be. There is a reason why we've only dug a few kilometres deep. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to dig a hole when you've got kilometres of rock on top of you? There's a limit of how strong a construction you can physically build. Techno-fixes are not going to enable us to start mining significantly in the deep crust. No amount of technological innovation is going to change the very basic physical constraints that prevent you from getting down there. On top of that, in terms of minerals, the deep crust isn't as interesting as the top of the crust. The highest concentrations of minerals that are common in the crust are at the surface, not near the moho.

Well, I for one don't care what happens to the moon. As long as all the environmentalists were put on it beforehand, it could be blown open for mining tomorrow and as long it resulted in a £0.01 increase in my wealth I would be happy.

I don't think we need to worry about asteroids since any hope of accessing them is centuries away.



You're not going to get "unlimited free energy", I have no idea where you got that idea from. Surprisingly enough, transporting materials to the moon and back is not free. On top of that, you're banking on a technology that doesn't exist. And it's not at all more important. Not only is He-3 not the only possible fuel for fission (if we even get it working) but there are plenty of other technologies that can easily fill its place. Germany has already managed to get a huge amount of communal renewables investment with very little intervention. Fission is not something we need and it certainly will not be free or green if we have to transport Helium from the moon.

To quote the great contemporary philosopher, Mika:

Dude, your perspective on life sucks.

You're going to be gone in ~80 years bro. Bang. Nothing left. No consciousness, no harmony, no hatred. Nothing. It's how it is. Don't you want to leave a positive legacy?

Regardless of your personal priorities, can you not see that if we keep exploiting Earth's very finite resources as we are and abusing her natural systems then we won't be able to live here like we do today.

Y'all need Jesus Sagan
[video="youtube_share;4PN5JJDh78I"]http://youtu.be/4PN5JJDh78I[/video]

The same people you're condemning for wanting to study lunar rocks are the people who will unlock the secrets of nuclear fusion anyway ;P At the very least, they're good friends.

Ain't much use having all the energy or oil or money in the world if there isn't much of a world (or civilization) left to use it in.

Just think for a moment about the effects industry is going to have. In order to make it financially viable, it will be the quickest and dirtiest kind of operation possible. It will be massive-scale open cast mining because the concentrations of minerals in the moon are going to be very, very low. You don't get mineral veins on the moon, they're generated by geological processes that only occur on tectonically active bodies. The moon has a higher concentration of certain elements that exist in the crust but those concentrations are still very, very low. A huge amount of material would have to be displaced. In order to minimise the transportation costs, all of that material would have to be processed on the moon, so that's more structures that have to be built. An incredible amount of waste would be generated that can't be transported back to the earth because it's too expensive, so that's dumped there too. You'll need accommodation for humans and probably some kind of farm to grow food to again minimise transportation costs. And once again, all of this generates yet more waste. The travel itself is going to have an impact across the moon - it might not have an atmosphere but partially because of this, ejecta from high above the surface can reach any part of the lunar surface. And again, you don't need a visible layer of material to constitute contamination. We're talking about part-per-trillion level precision in some measurements.

Jesus you're clueless.

First of all we passed the point where we got more out of fUsion reactor than we put into it last year.

Secondly, a fusion reactor produces, iirc, 100 times as much energy for comparable cost as a nuclear fission reactor.

So we'd have a fusion powered transporter transporting helium 3 back and forth from the moon. Within 20 years, probably. Energy at literally 1/100th of the cost of what we currently pay for it, if not cheaper.

Still, you are entitled to your mud huts and dysentry. I hear parts of the Congo would be happy to welcome you.

To quote the great contemporary philosopher, Mika:

Dude, your perspective on life sucks.

You're going to be gone in ~80 years bro. Bang. Nothing left. No consciousness, no harmony, no hatred. Nothing. It's how it is. Don't you want to leave a positive legacy?

Regardless of your personal priorities, can you not see that if we keep exploiting Earth's very finite resources as we are and abusing her natural systems then we won't be able to live here like we do today.

Y'all need Jesus Sagan
[video="youtube_share;4PN5JJDh78I"]http://youtu.be/4PN5JJDh78I[/video]

The same people you're condemning for wanting to study lunar rocks are the people who will unlock the secrets of nuclear fusion anyway ;P At the very least, they're good friends.

Ain't much use having all the energy or oil or money in the world if there isn't much of a world (or civilization) left to use it in.

Dirty? It sounds wonderful

I have no doubt humans won't be doing the majority of work up there and robots will any-who, so I don't expect much waste happening there. I'm quite happy that you've actually formed a good argument instead of "but it looks good" "but it's perfect". The simple solution to your now argument is create stringent laws on mining agreed by all countries and have a long period where no mining takes place and scientific research takes priority.

As said by a previous poster, there are asteroids, and you know what there are other moons, and other planets. It really isn't the end of the world if the moon gets contaminated, and while Id admit I'm no geologist I'm sure experiments could still be done on the moon as some are still done on the Earth today - not to mention parts of the moon will be inaccessible for the average (machine) miner just like on Earth.
Posted from TSR Mobile

If you actually researched that case, it was not a self-sustaining reaction. That reaction was sustained for a minute fraction of a second. It was definitely impressive (for a technology that has been in development for half a century) but it is far away from actually having a self-sustaining reaction. In order for fusion to be remotely viable, the energy output has to be significantly greater than the input to justify the massive costs.

It will not cost 1% of the energy costs at the moment, that's just mad. The cost of the infrastructure is unimaginable. Even if we could run it at 1% of the energy cost today (which we won't), it would take a huge amount of time, decades upon decades, to make up the initial investments. And once again, it's not green if we have to ferry fuel back from the moon.

Jesus you're clueless.

First of all we passed the point where we got more out of fUsion reactor than we put into it last year.

Secondly, a fusion reactor produces, iirc, 100 times as much energy for comparable cost as a nuclear fission reactor.

So we'd have a fusion powered transporter transporting helium 3 back and forth from the moon. Within 20 years, probably. Energy at literally 1/100th of the cost of what we currently pay for it, if not cheaper.

Still, you are entitled to your mud huts and dysentry. I hear parts of the Congo would be happy to welcome you.

Stringent laws aren't enough. Only a total moratorium would prevent irreparable damage. Even if it were properly regulated, you forget that regulations are a cost-benefit question for corporations. I can absolutely guarantee you that corporations will start getting fined for breaking regulations within a year of any kind of activity starting. The moon is too important to allow companies to even have the ability to break these regulations.

I don't give a **** if it's green. You keep bleating on about that first commandment in your treehugging bible. I care about progress, I care about human survival and I value the preservation of nature so far as it benefits human survival. And the vast majority of people on this planet are like me.

And what does it mean to be green in the middle of space? What are you smoking?

Adding to what I previously said, we don't even need He-3. Fusion is perfectly possibly with Deuterium which can be extracted from the oceans.

I don't really have anything to say to that other than I feel sorry for you. Your life must be pretty miserable if you genuinely don't care about anything.

I don't see it as that important whatsoever Chloro, I don't know the science it would provide and I don't think the majority do either that other celestial bodies would not. And even if laws were made, regulators would be in place and regulators on the regulators and so on if you were that serious about it.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Good. I'm glad you can use google.

Perhaps googling "why is helium 3 better than deuterium for fusion reactions" would have resulted in you finding this page: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/66205/why-is-helium-3-better-than-deuterium

None of us know the scientific value of the moon, that's precisely why it's so important to preserve. We have absolutely no idea what there is to discover. There could be little of practical value or there could be an immense value to humanity. As I've said, many of the most revolutionary discoveries came from scientists investigating things nobody thought was important.

I don't think we need to worry about asteroids since any hope of accessing them is centuries away.