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Space mining company developing nuclear reactor and more for moon projects (www.space.com)

submitted 1 year ago by readbeanicecream@kbin.social to c/space@kbin.social

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NASA astronaut Drew Feustel just joined to map its strategy.

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[–] BoobiesUnite@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow! i wonder what they would find? would it be that different from earth to be worth it?

Side question though: lets say that one day we have a colony on the moon. what exactly happens to humans who were born and raised on the moon? are their bodies gonna be all like all screwed up? i am assuming that one day all this tech is gonna be put into a moon base.

sorry if this is a little off topic but I have always wondered what happens in that scenario haha 😅

[–] readbeanicecream@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Well, if some sort of artificial gravity is not implemented:

"The level of gravity on the moon—about 17 percent that of Earth’s—could wreak havoc on bones, muscles, and other organs. And then there are the psychological aspects of what one NASA astronaut described as the “vast loneliness” of the moon."

source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/moondust-radiation-and-low-gravity-the-health-risks-of-living-on-the-moon

[–] zhunk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

i wonder what they would find? would it be that different from earth to be worth it?

I'm a pessimist about Lunar mining, so I'm not the best person to answer this. I think water ice will be the most useful for crewed bases and converting to propellant. I'm not aware of anything on the moon that makes financial sense to mine then bring back to Earth. Theoretically, some expensive metals might make sense, but they haven't been found yet.

Blue Origin's "Blue Alchemist" program is an ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) demo that's supposed to rove around, sift through massive amounts of regolith, and collect and heat it to thousands of degrees to split out the ingredients for solar panels. It's cool that it's possible, but the amount of ground they have to cover for tiny amounts of ingredients makes it not seem worthwhile at all to me.