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Comment by scardine | Hacker News Reader

Leaving moon's gravity well may be cheaper than getting to space from earth but it is far from free.

With a space elevator in the moon you can use raw material from the moon to assemble huge stations and ships in space.

Correct, the moon has a lot of aluminum and iron in its composition, once you can put a smelter and forger on the moon you have access to an endless stream of girders and other materials to make stuff out of. That stuff might not be strong enough for space elevator construction but there are plenty of other things you could use it for.

Whether any of that would be economical is another matter.

http://lunarpedia.org/w/Lunar_Aluminum_Production

What's the heat source for this smelter/forger?

The Sun.

Now that idea just makes me think of https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Nidavellir

I had this in mind:

https://www.alamy.com/solar-oven-huge-parabola-shaped-mirror...

Large sun focusing mirrors might be sufficient

That sweet Helium 3 nuclear fusion :) . Oh, wait, it would be just wasteful to use aneutronic fusion to smelt metals on the moon. You could probably sell the Helium 3 back on Earth and just use regular nuclear fusion to do that.

The moon has ideal conditions for solar energy harvesting: no atmosphere, no weather...

Since Project Apollo in the 1970s it is known that all the materials needed for manufacturing photovoltaic cells are present in lunar rocks and dust. Not saying it is an easy engineering feat, but the raw materials are there.

combine factorio with kerbel space program, and we'll have this sorted out no problem

you dont even need a smelter/forger if you want to build a massive space colony at the L1 lagrange point (which the moon elevator would pass through). Just pack the raw lunar regolith into prefab plastic sheeting similar. this is similar in concept to inflatable space habitats with the added benefit of radiation protection and thermal insulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_space_habitat

Not a snark, but how long before the is some sort of preservationist, nationalist, or other, declaration that the moon isn't they to be exploited.

I do not know how much is in place already with regards to regulation but you can be damn sure nations and people will be tripping over themselves once someone does find a means to make money using the moon for resources.

the fantasies of space elevators appeal the geek/nerd in many of us but as a world we are far from the need of one if not too far from being united to having one. throw in there are just enough parties with the means to damage or destroy the ground side of one if ever built

I don't think there are that many parties on the moon with the means to "destroy the ground side". In fact, as of right now there are actually zero. (Though that would probably change should a lunar space elevator be developed.)

If they can get up there to chain themselves to the bulldozers, they can protest all they want.

I just finished reading the "Mars Trilogy" by Kim Stanley Robson where there is a tension between the "red" and "green" parties (first group want to keep Mars pristine, the other want to terraform it). The reds even sabotaged Mars space elevator in order to slow down emigration.

I guess it will be like Antarctica, where several countries made territorial claims[1] over it, many of them overlapping.

The UN's 1984 Moon Treaty[2] is dead letter - it has never been defied but is defunct in practice as none of the most prominent space-faring nations have ratified it.

If someone settles in the Moon you can refute their claims over territory there but what else can you do? Set an embargo? Send a military force and try to kick them out? Nuke them? Someone with knowledge and resources to colonize that desolated rock in space is not an adversary to be underestimated...

[1] http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/people-in-anta... [2] http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/moon

"With a space elevator in the moon you can use raw material from the moon to assemble huge stations and ships in space."

Yeah, you really believe its trivial to work in space? Repairing the Hubble cost billions, I can't imagine the cost of building 1 ship in space (from stuff manufactured on the moon, which itself would be so costly I can't even imagine).

The space elevator itself would be something outrageously expensive and dangerous to build - but there will always be people willing to take the challenge.

And likely less expensive than the international space station.

The proposed mass of the lunar elevator is 40,000 kg, and does not include life support.

The mass of the ISS is 419,725 kg and cost ~150 billion.

For comparison, direct appropriations for the 2003-2010 war in Iraq (in addition to the defense budget) were 1.1 trillion.

That's a good point.

That’s no moon.

If I have learned anything from sci fi that turned out to be true its that we shouldn't touch the moon at all.

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