2007 December 18 « Andy’s Weblog

Settlements on the Moon. Do we need this?

Andrew Przygocki

Steve Ersinghaus

Composition

12-17-07

What Will We Do When We Run

Out Of Land To Live ON?

They have been talking about living on the Moon for years now. Will settlements on the Moon even happen? Why does any one even want this in the first place? Well as you know, people are being born all the time and with the green house effect we are going to run out of places to live. “The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet’s surface. The name comes from an incorrect analogy with the warming of air inside a greenhouse compared to the air outside the greenhouse. The Earth’s average surface temperature of 15 °C (59 °F) is about 33 °C (59 °F) warmer than it would be without the greenhouse effect.[1]” With the temperature raise the ice will melt, there will be more water and less land. We are going to have to do something soon.

I think that we need to live on the Moon and I think that it makes a lot of sense because everyone at one point or another wish that they could go to the Moon and now we are talking about living there. I found a essay from March 25, 1986 that said, “A Presidential panel is proposing a long-range, $700 billion space program that would put manned settlements on the moon in 30 years and envisions an eventual 1 million space travelers a day, according to a published report. (New York Times)” I think that if pretty crazy that they were thinking that we would be living on the Moon by 2016 that would have been 30 years from the day it was written. Being the year 2007, 21 years later, I think that I can safely say that we are no where close to living on the Moon by 2016.

I have been talking to many of my friends about living on the Moon and that they all said that they could see it happening, but not in our life time. My girlfriend Melanie and I were talking about it and she said that it sounds like a great idea, because of Green House Effect. More people are being born than dying and we are going to need somewhere to live. She agrees with me that it does not sound like it will happen in our lifetime, but maybe our great grand kids life time. If it does cost 700 billion dollars to make the Moon livable, as the article said, then what would it cost each person to live there? It sounds like if you did live on the Moon that you would have to have a lot of money.

I think that it would be nice to live on the Moon because it seems like the only other choice would be to live under water. I am not sure that living under water would be as good as living on the Moon because at one point we want to be able to grow food have water and breathe air. I do not believe that it would work underwater. Also the Moon is like another planet where you could just fly away to. You would feel like your so far away from everyone that they do not even exist. Another choice is we could even live on top of the water but then you could run into mother nature but I do not believe any better.

Back in the year 1986 they were thinking that we would be on the Moon in 30 years but we all know thats not going to happen. I also found where they said that, “In its early stages, the program calls for the development of new equipment, including a low-orbit cargo vehicle by the year 2000, a passenger vehicle for travel to and from low earth orbit, and a transfer ship to carry passengers and cargo beyond the moon.(New York Times)” It is 2007 and I still do not see us getting any close to have people travel back and forth to the Moon. It sounds like people were dreaming back then because we are nowhere closer to living on the Moon.

There is going to be a lot of work that will need to be done before people will be able to start moving to the moon. As of right now there is no water, food, natural recourses, or oxygen. As you know if we were to live on the Moon we would have to live in a bubble or something like that. In 2006 they made a fake picture of people starting to work on the Moon and they said, “NASA announced in 2006 about its centennial awards for refining moon ore for oxygen, creating excavators & finally about shipping. All are pre-requisites NASA believes are required for any settlements being in place. Here engineers in redefined suits to combat the dust particles look at what has happened to one of the automated diggers that collect the ore which is processed at the “HydroGen” facility. Spare parts and engineers are flown in to maintain the activities on the Moon’s surface. (Warren Turner)” I think that they did a good job with the picture and there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before we can start living on the Moon. But I think it will work out great.

There are people out there already talking about buying land on the Moon. I am not to sure about this because that sound a little crazy to me but I guess people are looking to start buying up land so that when people start moving there they will be able to sell it for more and make a profit off of it. I would never trust anybody selling land on the Moon because what happens if we never end up living on the Moon then we are just throwing our money away. As they said, “It will be offered for sale after months of worldwide press coverage produced by the race to be the first to settle the Moon. There will be land buyers with business purposes for buying and using land, but there will be a much bigger speculative and investment market. Many people who will never leave Earth will buy Lunar land. Some in hopes of making a profit, others just to be part of the excitement or to leave an acre to their grandchildren, or put their name on a crater.(spacesettlement.org)” I think that does not sound like a good idea to buying land yet. I would wait to see what happens and to see if we really move to the Moon and can live there without dying. Right now it sounds really cool to be able to go to the Moon and live there but yet it still sounds like it was something some kids were dreaming about.

Settlements on the Moon seem like it would be a great idea once we do finally get food, water, and air that we could breathe. I think that it would be great for your country to be able to get out of this planet and be able to live somewhere else. It would be the answer to the Greenhouse Effect we were looking for.