this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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It's a rock with no air and no life. How can we hurt it?
Yeah between all the other alternatives I think strip mining the moon is pretty OK. It's not as good as doing nothing - but I'd rather do it on a body with no ecosphere instead of destroying habitats
Why is it not as good as doing nothing? What benefit is there to not doing it? I mean, I could get surface preservation and keeping the moon pretty for the sake of humanity... But it sounds like there's any inherent value in not doing it?
You know those pictures taken from the Moon of the Earth? The ones where you can barely make out big islands like Cuba?
No one on the Earth will know anything is going on up there unless they have a very powerful telescope.
Yeah, that's true. We would be talking about terraforming projects on an enormous scale, unlike anything we've seen before.
What I'm saying is just that, if it came to that, I can understand wanting to preserve the surface of the moon, for sentimental and/or historical, human reasons, even though preserving the surface also doesn't provide any real, practical benefit.
I'm not arguing we shouldn't, but the "ideal" scenario with any natural resource is always to preserve it in my book
But this is certainly a case imo where the upsides would outweigh the downsides
Why? I can point out reason why preserving some wetlands is a good thing by pointing to plants and animals and humans. Something is only good because something benefits from it. Nothing is intrinsically good or bad.
It is a dead lifeless airless rock in space. Who suffers if a billionth of a percent of it is used for something?
I think you're entirely misunderstanding my meaning and sentiment, given that I don't disagree with anything in your comment
You need to read more science fiction.
Lucifer's Hammer or Seven Eves might be in order :)
I have read both. In 'Seveneves' the Moon breaks apart for no known reason and in 'Lucifer's Hammer' it's not the Moon that impacts the Earth.
give us some credit.. we can find a way to ruin it for future life..
WTF is 'future life?'
No air, no water, either blasted by unfiltered sunlight or near absolute zero. It's a lifeless rock.
okay how about this.. we develop terraforming tech in the near future, but something we're doing to the surface water there now (for example), spoils this process forever on our own Moon.. because WE weren't careful and polluted the environment for them.. i think that sounds like something we could accomplish..
The 'water' on the Moon is ice buried below the surface.
There is nothing up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon
i'm gonna write that down alright.. you're very helpful..