Does anyone else see the dangers in this? Aside from immediate danger to the miners and transporters, I am talking about long term here. The Earth relies on the moon. The gravitational pull and pull back creates the tidal effect in our oceans. If we start removing stuff from the moon, over a period of time it will start to loose mass. The gravitational pull/pull will lessen and the tide will start being affected. The tides directly effect ocean currents which is massive manipulator for the planet's weather systems. In other words, if we take enough material from the moon without replacing it we would be effectively killing our own planet in the process.
Bringing that much materials and machinery, in order to build permanent processing facilities on the Moon, large enough to process such amount of Lunar soil, is not going to be easy. Some things could be built in place but most of the machines will have to be manufactured on Earth.
Maintaining a human colony on the Moon is also going to be challenging. Growing food there is impossible with sunlight so artificial light sources may be used. Water on the Moon is somewhat hard to get, too. Furthermore, Moon's surface is completely unshielded against space radiation. A fully automatic facility would overcome these issues.
Sending the processed Helium-3 from the Moon to the Earth, with automated containers, is much easier than the other way around. However, 1 ton of Helium has significant volume even when compressed. Transporting it in its liquid form would be next to impossible, I think.
(10-09-2013, 02:20 PM)Krank Wrote: Does anyone else see the dangers in this? Aside from immediate danger to the miners and transporters, I am talking about long term here. The Earth relies on the moon. The gravitational pull and pull back creates the tidal effect in our oceans. If we start removing stuff from the moon, over a period of time it will start to loose mass. The gravitational pull/pull will lessen and the tide will start being affected. The tides directly effect ocean currents which is massive manipulator for the planet's weather systems. In other words, if we take enough material from the moon without replacing it we would be effectively killing our own planet in the process.
Because of the tides we are going to lose the Moon, eventually.
Removing 40 tons of material per year will not affect the Moon in any way worth mentioning.
The Earth is losing about 100 000 tons of atmosphere annually [source].
In none of the articles linked there's numbers called, and without actual numbers on how much...
Quote:"...the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel..."
...we're unlikely to tell how much of a success this experiment was. If it's just an eV, then I'd hardly call that a success, as you'd need to exceed by several MeV at least.
H2-bombs and latest Fusion-bomb (Ivy) exceed the amount of energy put in too, doesn't mean it suits for commercial use.
(10-09-2013, 02:20 PM)Krank Wrote: Does anyone else see the dangers in this? ... If we start removing stuff from the moon, over a period of time it will start to loose mass. The gravitational pull/pull will lessen and the tide will start being affected. The tides directly effect ocean currents which is massive manipulator for the planet's weather systems. In other words, if we take enough material from the moon without replacing it we would be effectively killing our own planet in the process.
No, no dangers whatsoever... Remember, we're not talking about removing 1 million tons from the moon per year, only 70 ...
Have you studied ANY science or math whatsoever?
The mass of the moon is about 7.2 x 10^19 tonnes. If we processed the ENTIRE moon at the rate of 1 million tonnes per year (7.2x10^19 / 1x10^6), that means there's only enough mass up there to last ... 7.2x10^13 years - I'm not too worried about 72 TRILLION years in the future.
And lets say we pull 70 tons per year off the moon for the next 500 years. That's a whopping 35,000 tonnes ... Basically less than .000000000000005% of the total mass of the moon. That's going to affect the orbit of the moon less than me taking a healthy poop affects my gravitational attraction to the earth.
So yeah - let's get up there and start digging. If you can provide the ENTIRE planetary energy supply this way - sounds good to me. (I've also been a sci-fi fan for ages, and if we have limitless energy this way, we can start doing other things - like building starships.)
(11-21-2013, 12:53 PM)Jihadjoe Wrote: Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.
(10-09-2013, 04:55 PM)Agmen of Eladesor Wrote: No, no dangers whatsoever... Remember, we're not talking about removing 1 million tons from the moon per year, only 70 ...
Have you studied ANY science or math whatsoever?
So you think I am some uneducated child or something?
Everyone here seems to forget how big business works. Say humanity does get to the moon and can cost effectively mine HE3, do you honestly think they would ONLY mine a certain amount each year and stop? I don't think so. The cost of maintaining a mining base on the moon (whether automated or manned) would entice whatever company sponsored said activity to mine out the fuel as fast and as much as possible. It probably would be into the millions of tons per year.
Besides, as long as the oil companies have their hands into the governments of the world, it won't come to light anyway. You'll be lucky if your great grand children see it happen.
