Extraterrestrial Mining

Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein.

there are many rocks that are oxides. If you supply energy you can extract the oxygen from the rock and you may also make by product metals as well. It is costly in energy, but a lot less costly than lifting from earth. Similarly, there are hydrates that can have water extracted and carbonates that can liberate carbon dioxide. Chlorides, fluorides etc, and in fact almost all the terrestrial elements can be found and extracted from the moon, via assorted rocks you must dig for.

With water, CO2 and a number of trace elements you can make greenhouses to grow all manner of fruits and vegetables. You can make solar furnaces for electricity via solar heat via steam, and you can make direct conversion solar cells. The heat can be used for rock distillation and extraction of other minerals, and so on

You can also make rock wool insulation = a very good insulator for housing. You can also make heaps of waste rock to cover the insulated housing to prevent meteor strikes. This is not going to happen tomorrow, but with time and ingenuity a large habitable site can be made. Of greater concerrn is how well man will tolerate 1/6G gravity? Astronauts have problems after a few months in zero G. Will man adapt to the 1/6G or will skeletal problems mean he has to spend 1-2 hours in G simulation exercies areas. We might have to make rotating habitats that create simulated gravity of closer to 1G if 1/6 cannot be tolerated for the longer term.

All this means research for decades.

If you find caves and seal them, it will provide housing with good built in radiation shielding.

Outside, high solar irradiation provides good power potential.

With mining, you can produce O2, probably N2 to provide a suitable atmosphere within the cave.

Rocks can also provide water and CO2 (as the previous post pointed out) allowing greenhouses to be made for food supply.

From the metals produced from rocks, outside and inside structures could readily be built.

Because of the low gravity and zero atmosphere, large structures could be built.

This raises the possibility of some huge solar furnaces for smelting and power generation as well as large space exploration vessels.

If solar power is insufficient, then nuclear materials could be mined and nuclear power used also.

Suitable materials could be extracted for rocket fuel, but it may be better to launch using something similar to a rail or coil gun and use an ion engine to shift further away.

Expeditions to the asteroids with mining and colonization would be an interesting prospect. If insufficient water was found, perhaps Saturn's rings could be mined.

The possibilities raised are endless and exciting.

As long as we continue launching from the depths of our gravitational well, space exploration will languish.

If we build ships and launch from the much smaller gravity well of the moon, the possibilities for exploration and possibly even exploitation of space are significantly expanded.

Most cave making processes(volcanic and erosive) are absent in the moon. All structures will be pressurized to a habitable O2 pressure(which might be 3 PSI oxygen only)?

Gravity mass will work to provide the enclosure to keep a sealed construction from expanding. Of course, you can make a fiberglass (spun moon rock) tube that is sealed with silicone rubber(again from moon rock) that is strong enough to hold pressure, but you will still need a barrier for micrometeors which are a constant fine hazard not present on the earth.

AT first you will bring all things from earth. As time goes by you will build the infrastructure to use moon materials. This will be driven by the economics. Obviously the consumables like water and oxygen will be high on the list with metals, glass, etc somewhat lower.

It is a complex task to boot-strap an economy. The best path would be to use basic economics and create a tech group to analyze all construction/maintenance etc to find the best process. It may well take 100 years at todays snail's pace....it may never happen due to raw costs. China migth do it, as their system allows them to ignore costs....at their eventual peril as the USSR discovered.

How many girls do we get?

No wonder Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite movies.

I used to want to live in outerspace, but it gets less and less attractive the more I know.

Good place for Robots though.