Why we might not be able to live on the Moon

[bananas]

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130906-blow-to-idea-of-living-on-moon

Why we might not be able to live on the Moon

Philip Ball

6 September 2013

The suggestion that regions of the Moon have ancient ice triggered much hope that we could colonise it. Sadly, it’s looking ever less likely that it’s possible.

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A new paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters drives another nail into the coffin of lunar living. It suggests that what was at first taken to be bright, reflective ice in the Shackleton crater is in fact more likely to be white rock.

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Led by Junichi Haruyama of the Japan Aerospace Space Exploration Agency (Jaxa), based in Kanagawa, they have analysed data from Jaxa’s lunar orbiter Selene – better known in Japan as Kaguya after a legendary moon princess. Last year the team reported that Selene (which operated from 2007 to 2009) had found rocks made of the mineral anorthosite all over the Moon. This stuff is thought to be formed when meteorites hit the Moon and melt its surface, and the researchers suggested that the Moon might have a thick layer of it several kilometres beneath its surface, created by a massive impact soon after it was formed.

Lunar anorthosite is very pure and bright white, as shown by the lumps of it brought back by the Apollo missions. But here’s the clincher: unlike ice, anorthosite absorbs infrared radiation strongly at a wavelength of 1.25 micrometres, providing a distinctive signature of this mineral. And that absorption was just what was seen by Selene on the inner wall of the Shackleton crater. So it looks as though it isn’t ice.

Haruyama and colleagues don’t rule out the existence of water elsewhere on the Moon, for example hidden away in sub-surface caverns. But they suspect that the amounts might be small. That may still be scientifically interesting, raising questions about how it got there and how it might move around on the surface. Yet without a significant amount of water on the Moon, it is hard to see how any substantial space colony could be established there – the cost of sending up regular water supplies (which would be used not just for drinking but for making hydrogen as fuel) just doesn’t look viable.

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[Warpy]

1. I think it highly unlikely there is no ice on the moon

but I do find it unlikely that it exists on the surface, even in deep craters. Any explorers are going to have to work hard to extract it there since it's likely to lie within fractures in deep rock, deposited when similar material was raining down on earth and turning into our oceans.

Having it lie on the surface is just too easy.

[bananas]

2. It's amazing how little we know about the moon. nt

[jmowreader]

3. No air looks like a bigger dealbreaker to me

[TexasTowelie]

4. No catnip looks like a bigger dealbreaker to me.

[bananas]

5. The idea was to get oxygen from the h2o.

You can split water into oxygen and hydrogen,
giving you air, water, and rocket fuel.

[jmowreader]

6. Air isn't just oxygen

I imagine they can find a shitload of nitrogen somewhere.

[Cronus Protagonist]

8. *SNORT*

hahahahaa! Damn right.

[madokie]

7. I don't think man will ever be able to colonize any moon or planet

We're a product of our world and no where else has the same conditions that would allow man to survive.
Thinking so is a fools errand if you ask me.

[IDemo]

9. Cosmic radiation would seem to be enough of an obstacle n/t