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Space/Science » in reply to Space.com addresses lunar base issues

re: Space.com addresses lunar base issues
gbaikie — (archived)

"But if you are someone who doesn't put much stock in the potential for lunar industrialization, and who is only attracted to the polar ice reserves because in addition to a supply of drinking water, they can be turned into rocket fuel to support exploration, not of the Moon, but of the rest of the solar system, then the polar sites offer just what you need. That you bring the Mountain (larger tonnage of mare/highland regolith needed) to Mohammed (ice) or bring Mohammed to the Mountain, is not a consideration. But consider: did we build Los Angeles next to Prudhoe Bay?"

I guess I'm in this camp. And really don't care if lunar base is built by NASA, and I do put a lot of stock into the industialization of the Moon, but first we need to determine if there is minable water at the lunar poles.
You mine water first because there is a potential market for water and the chemical rocket fuel enables transporation [to the Moon, to different location on the Moon, off the Moon, to Mars, to GEO, to LEO, and fuel for machines and ground vehicles]. If you have lots of rocket fuel on the surface, you get another market with require little infrastructure- returning lunar sample [Moon dirt] to Earth.
Once lunar industrialization gets beyond the point mining say more than 100 tons of iron per year, you will probably get things like mass drivers start being made- and thereby not require chemical rocket fuel to get stuff off the Moon. Mass driver can also be used to transport material from one location on the Moon to another point of the Moon, and evenually be so efficent in terms energy cost that it make transportation on Earth with trucks, planes, or even trains seem rather inefficent: you will get losses converting energy and that's about it- solar energy/or nuclear energy-electrical energy-mechanical energy-[regenerative braking] to electrical energy.

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