Actually, it's in a much shallower gravity well than Earth is; that plus the airlessness makes it a much better launch platform for interplanetary spacecraft.

Yeah, but anything that ends up on the moon must have come from earth, so why not just launch from the earth?

> anything that ends up on the moon must have come from earth

For now.

The key multiplier to changing space exploration is making that no longer true. And you could do a lot worse than solid ground, with gravity, near Earth as a first permanent step.

That, and space elevators are feasible on the moon with todays technology which makes moving stuff into orbit much cheaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator

Using a lunar space elevator allows you to cheaply move materials from the moon into space and build huge interplanetary rockets without having to design your rocket around the rocket equation to get out of a gravity well.

In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think a lunar space elevator port is the key to exploring the solar system. You can build massive spaceships and refuel them without ever having to deal with the tyranny of the rocket equation.

You can send 50 rockets individually to the moon to deposit fuel and use it as a refueling/relaunching point. 50x fuel can't go up with the passenger-laden craft in the same way.

You can just refuel in Earth orbit though. That would use less fuel [1] than landing on the moon unless you were going to the moon anyway.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget

True but storage is an issue and as I said in another comment, Project Orion-type endeavors become more palatable when launched from a stable orbiting rock rather than empty space or a manmade platform.

Because of the rocket equation.

An even better launch platform is empty space (pick any Earth moon Lagrange point) where there is no delta V penalty.

There is increased complexity when launching from empty space / manmade built platforms. There's also the potential for Project Orion to be launched from the moon, where this would probably not be acceptable from empty space.

These orbits are unstable and require careful stationkeeping or a large orbital amplitude to maintain a semi-stable orbit.

L4 and L5?

But also no gravity which is problematic.

If you look at the moon as a really good space station as opposed to a planet, I think there are many good reasons to set up a base there.

* Gravity: enough to help with long term habitation, but low enough that getting on and off is much, much easier than Earth.

* Close to Earth

* Enough space that one could build a lot of things. It's a lot cheaper to dig than it is to launch more space station modules.

I see a few problems with those points:

* Yes, but unless all resources and future astronauts are all from said moon base then they have to leave Earth anyway. Stopping at the moon would take even more energy.

* Close to Earth yes. But not really to anything else (the moon is relatively right next to earth compared to any other object really worth landing on).

* Build what? This is similar to point 1. To get any resources there we still have to send them from earth. It'd be relatively waaaaay cheaper to send more space station modules then to either send raw resources + specially designed building equipment, or moon base modules.

Don't get me wrong. I'd vote for it and pay my share in taxes to develop and build a self sustaining base on the moon. My reasoning is more of a engineers "because we can" mentality to a fun (IMO) challenge. We'd also benefit on Earth from the technology developed.

> Build what? This is similar to point 1. To get any resources there we still have to send them from earth.

There are a number of very smart people who believe that the next big thing is industry in space with materials not from earth.

Okay, I can see this. I know that a fair number of resources are extraordinarily rare on earth but space bodies are often almost exclusively made of - iridium for example). My knowledge beyond that is limited, I don't know how much those resources are worth, or if there are future uses for them we haven't discovered because of current cost barriers due to rarity.

I'd say though, lets pretend that an entire "flight" to intercept an comet/asteroid/material-rich-spacebody (Sorry I don't know the technical terms here) could be reduced to 100million USD. That material would have to be worth that 100million USD, not to mention all of the R/D.

Again personally I want humans to one day achieve it just for the heck of it - why not? But others are money driven and I'm not sure it makes actual financial sense (in terms of money making)

If you need that material to be in space, for use in space, remember competing materials (from Earth) need to pay a large get-it-out-of-the-gravity-well tax. I think something currently in the order of $1k per kg.

But to what end do we need a really good space station?

I realize we can work on more than one problem at a time and that it is expedient to do so. But I often wonder how much space exploration, particularly manned missions, are a distraction from more pressing issues on our home planet.

Also, if space exploration is a more scientifically exciting problem than say, ensuring enduring sources of clean water for the millions of people who don't have access to it, well then, that's a sad world indeed.

>> Also, if space exploration is a more scientifically exciting problem than say, ensuring enduring sources of clean water for the millions of people who don't have access to it, well then, that's a sad world indeed.

Enduring sources of clean water for everyone in the world is a scientifically very easy problem to solve compared to most of what is discussed on this website.

The problem is that it is a politically very difficult problem to solve. And you want Bezos/Musk/etc to fix this... how?

Oh God, I don't want to delegate the task of fixing to the world to just a few tech moguls.

However, I would be encouraged to see the scientific community Incorporate a stronger social solidarity into their work. Because a problem is hard or simple is not reason enough alone to pursue it, personally. Finding the largest prime number known might be a somewhat difficult task, but to what end is it found?

I don't disagree with the main thrust of this comment, but it doesn't have much to do with comparing spaceflight with clean water. One is solvable by the tech community (maybe?) and the other isn't because there are political obstacles in the way. And when tech companies try to solve political issues, people on HN and everyone else who leans marginally liberal get increasingly pissed off that rich people are messing with dem dere laws again.

Solved problem.or not even a problem. There's plenty of water on earth. The only question is if it is drinkable. And at what cost. These are elementary problems solved by simply applying property rights, stuff we have done for millennia for things like grazing land etc( read up Elinor Ostrom). Not a hard engineering problem. You lament is equivalent to someone at his almost empty fridge on a Friday evening and panicking that the world is almost running out of food supply. That's not how things work

> * Close to Earth

* Close to Earth while maintaining a nearly constant distance.

* Always reachable. Never is it on the other side of the sun from Earth.

There is a lot of Helium-3 on the moon that could make the trip worth it.

Yes, and the tokamaks on Earth to use it are going to be ready when? And why bother when deuterium tritium reactions are sort of okay (waste half life on the order of 100 years)

Why do anything? The reason we have all that we have is a combination of exploration and problem solving. Meaning often comes at the same time as you solve a problem, not nessesarily before.

Because we can. In the 13.72 billion years the universe has existed, we're the only ones who can.

There's a lot things we can do. That's not a reason unto itself. This is just adventure travel, gussied up with delusions of species destiny from space operas.

Why not settle the Gobi Desert? Develop technologies to suck carbon out of the air, and reverse global warming? Develop technologies to cope with climate disruption, or even just purchase land for the anticipated climate refugees. All of these are really Hard problems, and billion times more pressing, and much more obvious impact.

The only ones who can what? Settle our moon? Settle other bodies?

Capitalism demands limitless growth, and ultimately that means leaving the planet. Colonizing the moon is the first major step.

Not capitalism. Human progress and dynamism. We could all live pre industrial life, be born and die at 30, be cold and sick most of the time and die mostly illiterate. Nasty, short and brutish i.e that ship has long sailed now