>I thought [lunar water] was a hypothesis, they didn't find condensate in polar
>craters yet. One really ought model this, impact data, geometry,
>illumination, all being available. But then, no accurate model how Luna
>loses gases exist, afair.
Yes it's a hypothesis, from radar data. Illumination is only starlight,
since the crater shades it from the sun (don't know about reflected
earthlight). Modeling is OK, but I would prefer to see a more direct
confirmation ...
>> linear induction accelerators for putting lunar resources into orbit,
>
>Yes! yes! Good, old linear motors.
I can't see there being a need for a large population on the Moon. It
doesn't take many people to load dirt into accelerator buckets. There isn't
much worth mining, and you'll need to import a lot of raw materials (the
water reserve isn't large, and you would still probably have to import
nitrogen).
In his L5 days, Eric Drexler wrote an essay in print that spoke to the
asteroid vs. moon development debate in the National Space Society (I think
it might have been in one of those Pournelle fiction/non-fiction space books
in paperback format). It convinced me that the Moon isn't good for much, and
that we should be planning for the near-earth asteroids instead.
I've found it hard to get excited about the concept of moon colonies since
then. It/they will look like mine sites in Northern Canada, with
dozens/hundreds of people at most, but no long-term prospect for development.
I've been to northern minesites. No matter how well set-up they are, no one
who wants to live there. They have a heavy crew rotation schedule (in the
case of the moon, to L5?).
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Sean Morgan (sean@lucifer.com)