The Moonbase: one of the greatest ideas to fly economically.. OR The Law of Maximizing Returns

Hi www

There is a simple truth to the earth and space travel, building and launching ships from the earth is wildly expensive.

Building and fueling from the moon means the following:

1. It is less effort to build on the moon, the weights involved for the construction of the ships is less meaning it takes less energy to assemble.
2. We can build ships as large as we want, so when we fuel them the tanks can be as large as we want, so we can burn harder burning more fuel to get to the solar bodies quicker. We can build tanks as large as we wish. We can build comfortable crew, cabin & passenger quarters for long space flights because we are not limited by weight, as we are on the Earth.. launching from the earth costs many many times as much fuel per gram of weight because of gravity on the earth.
3. We can diffuse Hydrogen and Oxygen from the moons hidden underground ocean. We pass electricity through water to diffuse the H2 and O, hydrogen gives us fuel, oxygen gives us air.
4. We can use the moonbase as a communications case also.. hmm this might need more detail..

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Imagine a scenario where there are humanoid shaped robots, you are the brain and are remotely controlling the robot, the robot does not need oxygen, in fact it is a great way to be safe as the only thing the robot needs is electricity.

Imagine a sphere shaped room you go inside and inside the sphere are screens, there screen display roughly what the robot sees.. however this is only for background light diffusion, because human eyes are sensitive to light, this room will help the immersion.

A suit is suspended with thousands of thick strings.. these are the strings of the 'Puppetmaster' who will control the robot, the strings help add an additional layer to controlling the robot. Motion sensors (like Kinect), suit sensors, mapped out like a nervous system also provide input..

But also feedback and output to the PMaster.

Q: Why go to all this trouble?

For safety of the humans.. not only for their lives, but it would mean to replace the crew, we would require more launching from earth, which we are trying to avoid. 

If say, a large metal structure fell on a human, even in a low grav environment, this would NOT be good.

Preserving life IS paramount to the moonbase for several reasons.

1. moral within the crew.

2. moral within the world perception of the project and its funding.

3. Ability to prevent costly delays to the project.

4. Ability to prevent increase costs by having to search for qualified persons to replace the person who is injured or has died.

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     5. A point to consider is overall weight for usage case.. what I mean is, IF we had humans who were 4ft tall total, we could then provide: smaller living quarters, reduced overall weight of the launch from earth, what we *really* need is their minds to control the robots, so all the equipment mentioned above could be to their scale. We have been building for humans who are 6" to 6"5' and if instead we were building for humans that are 4" would mean a weight reduction of 1/3rd.

NASA could even use the Virgin Galactic style of launch for the whole base and launch it to the moon, this being a one way trip for the base, with a Space X style ship waiting for the crew on the moonbase site, should they require it.

This way would be VERY costly.. however, in the long run would cost less than many many earth launches in succession.

In the long run it saves a fortune, meaning the base is already completed and fully equipped, no assembly required and can get underway within a very very short time, a second base would be built by the crew of the first base to accommodate larger humans.

I am not suggesting those with dwarfism, who would struggle with the g-force.. without taking this to a racial place, I have met and known Filipinas who were this height naturally, fully intelligent capable bodied humans, all we are trying to achieve is weight reduction. only. Only.

The overriding thought behind all of this is being able to launch humans quickly and cheaply to the moon, for intersolar exploration and travel. Eventually mining resources.

The best way to do that is have a moon base that is manufacturing vessels and launching them. While Mars will be a great boon for humans.. in the long term we should be looking at launching to Venus also from the moon, building on the moon the vessels that we can send to Mars, that will go to Ceres and the Outer Solar System. Mars and Ceres being fueling stations.

If we can fully make a another moonbase whilst on the moon and launch it to Ceres this would mean having potentially the same resources on Ceres. Having a Space X style ship waiting for the crew on Ceres to return to Mars or Earth with a second crew in rotation. But this, as I said, is for the long term.

Dava