Ask HN: Why is there no cafe on the Moon?

1 pointbabuskov2 comments

We are talking about space tourism and visiting Mars. Wouldn't something like building a small building on the Moon, with a bar and a couple of tables be much more easier to pull off?

I bet there are many rich people who would pay millions for a trip and a drink on the surface while looking at the Earth in the distance through some thick plexiglass wall.

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"Space tourism", for now, means "putting people into LEO for an orbit or two" or just "getting out of the atmosphere". That's significantly easier than putting someone on the moon and returning them home alive.

Would a moon cafe be easier than sending someone to Mars and back? I mean, that's pretty freakin' obvious, isn't it?!

Why isn't there such a thing? Because it's still hard, expensive, and dangerous. It's not clear to me why this isn't obvious.

For political reasons. NASA decided that it would be easier to get funding for a flashy Mars expedition than to do something boring like going back to the Moon.

And the private space industry is just barely getting big enough to think about getting a payload to the moon. At that point it's about whether any sufficiently rich people want to do it badly enough. Maybe they have other priorities.

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