China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by richardknop on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @06:31AM (#18910396)

Water possibly could be of great value in the future? Moon has plenty of drinking water. Maybe gold, not sure if there’s gold on the Moon?

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by pjc50 on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @08:06AM (#18910847)

Ah yes, the entirely viable project of moving water from a bone dry vacuum rock to a planet 2/3 covered by water.

I'm not sure it would be viable to return gold from the moon even if the moon was made of solid gold.

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by stcredzero on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @02:19PM (#18914000)

Ah yes, the entirely viable project of moving water from a bone dry vacuum rock to a planet 2/3 covered by water.

Water as a space resource is primarily talked about for use in space.

I'm not sure it would be viable to return gold from the moon even if the moon was made of solid gold.

It turns out it's a lot cheaper to return stuff from the moon, than it costs to send it to the moon. This is especially true if the stuff is dead, and you don't mind subjecting it to 10's of thousands of g's and you can use electromagnetic accelerators running in free vacuum on the surface, instead of rockets.

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by richardknop on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @08:35AM (#18911005)

Yeah that's a good point. At least it could be used locally by the colony then.

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by dwighttk on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @08:43AM (#18911044)

just push the whole thing into the pacific... probs be alright, right?

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by lawlessone on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @07:09AM (#18910596)

Desalination is expensive but i think it might be cheaper than moon water.

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by aristophenes on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @01:12PM (#18913389)

I was about to upvote you, then realized desalinization is not even expensive anymore. Shipping water from the moon to earth is just a really really bad idea. Ha, even burning the fuels to send the rockets into space would create more water here on earth than we could bring back. Fuel + Oxygen --> carbon dioxide + water

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by krisoft on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @06:56AM (#18910530)

What happened here on earth in your imagined scenario where it's worth importing water from the moon? (and how did we survive that long enough for a market to develop?)

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by dotancohen on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @09:35AM (#18911339)

To be fair, I hesitate to spend €1 on a liter of spring water today. However for a single drop of moon water I might trade my car, sex, or significant work.

Refined aluminum was once scarcer than gold, and aluminum jewelry was extraordinarily expensive.

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by aristophenes on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @01:15PM (#18913424)

Pure drinking water literally falls from the sky on this planet.

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by p2t2p on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @05:34PM (#18916243)

*for now

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Re:China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout by aristophenes on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @01:11PM (#18923280)

When/How do you anticipate that stopping? Unless the entire planet freezes over, then you'll have even more fresh water in the form of ice. As long as it's above freezing, and 2/3 of our planet is covered in water, it will be raining somewhere.

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