[ExI] The Moon's Cold Embrace

Giulio Prisco giulio at gmail.com
Tue Aug 11 05:18:58 UTC 2020


On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 4:26 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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> On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 8:02 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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>> On Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 3:02 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
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>>> > If Trump wins US astronauts will probably walk on the Moon before the end of the decade. [...] If Trump loses, good bye Artemis and the hope to return to the Moon.
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>> Good. At this point in our technological development I see little point in sending astronauts to the moon and even less to Mars.
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> ### Spacex promises to reduce launch costs to LEO to $100/kg in the not too distant future. There is continued progress in robotics and additive manufacturing. The weight of a 90% self-sustaining technological ecosystem is dropping. At some point in the not too distant future it will be possible to establish a self-enlarging but not self-sufficient technological presence on the Moon at a cost accessible to affluent Americans. Giant lunar lava tubes might offer hundreds of square miles of protected space to build cities supported by high-efficiency farming.
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> I would consider emigrating to the Moon if cryonic suspension was available there. In the polar regions there are cold traps with stable subsurface temperatures estimated at 38K. This is a potentially highly stable, long-term protected burial space for people interested in the far future.
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> An important issue is the potential for rapid sociological change that could be achieved on the Moon by self-selection and controlled immigration into new political entities only weakly associated with telluric powers. Our enemies' assaults would be thwarted by space and distance while we proceed with the transformations Extropians have dreamed of for a long time.
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> Rafal

I think some more years of government funding are needed before
private space becomes self-sustaining and independent of government
funding. If so, we are at a critical moment and what happens in the
next few months could accelerate or delay human space expansion by
decades.

If not, then I hope Musk Bezos &co. will use their money to go to the
Moon and Mars without the government. But I'm somewhat skeptical.



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