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I would like to open up the discussion to building human colonies on the Moon. Its our closest neighbor and transport to it is easier than it to Mars. You don't have to go through a six month journey to go to the Moon. The Earth is always there in the Lunar Sky and vice versa.
Solar energy is also more available on the Moon than on Mars and the means to obtain solar energy are readily available from the local materials.
Overall I think we are much closer to stationing people permanently there than we are to Mars.
Water Ice and other Volatiles were produced in LCROSS mission so the resources for water to drink, breathable air, rocket fuel, fuel cells is readily available. Carbon and Nitrogen containing compounds were found which could be vital to food production and chemical engineering.
With closed loop life support ( or close enough) these bases could really grow and more and more people could be permanently based there. The main industries would be producing solar power modules and parts for Lagrange point colonies. I think robotics would be heavily used in settling the Moon but they're always going to need people to operate and repair the robots.
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Oh, we're definitely closer to a human settlement on Luna than we are to one on Mars.
The question is, what are the economics behind it? Tourism doesn't work to get the thing started, but once a basic cis-Lunar architecture is running, it'll probably become viable. Fuel depots are reliant on "build it and they will come", but if you're supplying a depot in LEO cheap enough to enable much cheaper launches to GEO and other locations, then they will come. Mining of Platinum Group Metals might be viable, but you need to identify where the meteorites are. But don't expect to make more than a few billion each year without crashing the market. Enough to pay for an initial settlement? Perhaps, if the cost to orbit is low enough. I've also mentioned basic Lunar rock set into jewelry; if Pandora manage to make $6 billion each year off selling exorbitantly priced trinkets, then with the right marketing, I'm positive people as a whole will spend a couple of billion dollars a year to give their loved ones a bit of the moon.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Platinum is a platinum metal group element with industrial uses, such as making fuel cells, I don't think you can crash the market on platinum, because as platinum becomes cheaper more uses will be found for it. One of the things holding hydrogen fuel cells back from powering electric cars is the expense of platinum, if we could find a lot of cheap platinum on the Moon, getting it to Earth would be an easy matter. Platinum has a high melting point, one could catapult it off the Moon and it can enter the Earth's atmosphere without burning or melting very much, it is fairly dense as well, so a large chunk will make quite a crater.
As for tourism, ever consider basketball. What would it cost to build a regulation basketball stadium on the Moon, probably a pressurized dome will do, then you can transport two NBA teams to the Moon to play basketball against each other on this court and the site would be quite entertaining to see. The proffessional basketball players won't sacrifice much getting to the Moon, they can spend 3 days in space getting there and 3 says getting back and they'll still be in shape for more games on Earth, a trip to Mars, not so much!.
What do you think would be the most interesting thing to Lunar Basketball, and how would professional basketball players adapt to it? A lot of slam dunks perhaps? Will they overshoot the basket a lot? Will more balls go out of bounds? You think the professionals will trip and stumble around a lot?
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