How would you colonise space?

[Stargazer]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

I think we might be thinking about this the wrong way. We are thinking like scientists, we should be thinking like businessmen. If we were serious about colonizing space, we would need to make it lucrative in some way. Like aluminum on the moon, or space hotels, anything that could generate profit. Only once that happens will space be colonized.

This has already begun. Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace are great examples!

[syntax]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

Would it be possible to build a self-sufficient colony in space without being on a planet? That may be the first step, once they could provide for themselves well enough, they may be able to produce a surplus of goods that they could then send down to colonists on a planet.

Now you are talking. Something like the old DS9 show?

I really don't see why colonizing the moon first won't work. Isn't there enough Hydrogen and oxygen on the moon to sustain life? I know it has to be mined, but it is there isn't it?

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by syntax

I know it has to be mined, but it is there isn't it?

I don't know, I would think so.

But most all, welcome to Hypography, syntax!

[syntax]

Thanks for the welcome

My thought is that if we could get a foothold on the moon, then the electronic cannon could be built to launch material and personnel to other places in the solar system.

I read a story once years ago about a moon mining operation where they sent the proceeds of the mine back to Earth with an electronic cannon. It sounded logical at the time.

[Stargazer]

There's oxygen in the lunar soil, and plenty of metals as well. There might be water at the poles. A lunar colony could be nearly self sufficient.

[Drakon1323]

Also a lunar colony could serve as a relay station between space and earth without the need to overcome a significant level of gravity.

[Stargazer]

Yes and that's why it could be a great place for mining operations that could then send the materials to large industrial facilities and spacedocks in L1 or something, where there are no real limits on how large structures, ships and probes one can build. Right now we're restricted to expensive and inefficient rockets with limited capabilities regarding to lift capacity and size.

[syntax]

OK, now about water. If there is hydrogen and oxygen on the moon, is it much of a trick to combine those elements to produce water?

It seems to me that when I was a kid in high school, the lab teacher burned a little hydrogen in a test tube and we wound up with a drop of water on the lip of the tube. He said that water was the byproduct of burning hydrogen because when oxygen combined with it to support combustion, it made water.

[pgrmdave]

That's where the name 'hydrogen' comes from, it means 'water-generator'. But I don't think that combustion would be the most efficient way to create water.

[syntax]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

That's where the name 'hydrogen' comes from, it means 'water-generator'. But I don't think that combustion would be the most efficient way to create water.

Perhaps not, I don't know, but I would think that combustion would be needed to provide heat, electricity and power for vehicles.

Givin all that, and since oxygen and hydrogen are available on the Moon, doesn't it seem fesable that a self sustaining colony could be established there after the raising of food problems were solved?

Here we think we could create oxygen to breath (of course I suppose we would need to produce other gasses too), and hydrogen for fuel and can produce water from those two elements, all we need is a greenhouse. I don't even think that the greenhouse would have to be pressurized, at least to the point that the human quarters would be pressurized.

Hell, the more I think about it, I don't see why we haven't done it already.