RE: Why We Should Colonize the Moon before Mars
Fair enough, my sentence was poorly phrased. What I meant to say was that the Moon does not have a lot of easily accessible resources useful for human survival. While it has a lot of Oxygen, it is mostly in the form of silicon dioxide, ferrous oxide, magnesium oxide, and aluminum oxide, all of which would require strong processing to reduce. As far as water, the Moon is about as dry as it gets. My favorite quote talking about the Moon's water content goes like this:
This contrasts strongly with the Moon, which is so dry that if concrete were found there, Lunar colonists would mine it to get the water out. - Source
And as far as carbon and nitrogen, they are very minimal. Granted, that info comes from a paper from 1996, and I'm not an expert but that's what I meant!
The moon has been hit by a bunchaton of impactors(asteroids n stuff)
of which are divided into three classes.
Type C - Carboniferous (water and organics)
Type M -metal (iron and such)
Type SS - $$ (platinum group metal)
Now consider a raisin cake.
The raisins are scattered here and there in the cake. The raisin is NOT the cake. The cake is different. The cake is a lie.
It's lying about what's in the raisins.
Some digging might be required.
Note: my default setting is snark...can't help it. Birth defect I think.
No offense intended.
No offense taken, I value somebody who tells it like it is haha. I appreciate the metaphor, and you're right about the impactors of course.
(whew)...I've been told I can be blunt.
Your article prompted me to do a lot of research.
I'm convinced that there are a LOT of opportunities right at our doorstep before we need to start concerning our selves with mars. There's an asteroid at the leading trojan point for example. As well as earth crossing asteroids. We could mine them FIRST...and/or turn them into habitats.