More ideas for my Moon story

[thatcrazycajun]

This link from NASA shows what a mineralogical gold mine the Moon is. Using technology available now, aluminum, ceramics and glass could be made there to build the Lunarites' buildings, and with a fusion process using helium-3 (such as my character, Dr. Joe Aronofsky, develops in the show), an abundant energy source can be collected and shipped to Earth at a cost equivalent to buying oil at $7.00 US a barrel.

Comments

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to pursuade people that our current crisis (especially WRT Global Warming) is actually an energy crisis.

We can do anything we want to the climate, with pollution, etc, to minimise or reverse the damages we've done, if we simply find a new source of a whole lot more energy than we've ever had before.

My contention is that source is probably fusion, unless we make a major breakthru in solar.

Either way, what it's going to take to fix our current problems is to do again, on an order of magnitude grander scale, what we did for the industrial revolution with coal and then petrol.

Once we have that quantity of energy at our disposal, all the other problems are simple chemical equations that need energy to make happen.

Unfortunately, it's going to take a breakthru in energy science of that kind of magnitude, and right now, the Right is focused on mollycoddling the petroleum industry and the left seems obsessed with conservation (which is great) and "sustainable" sources that won't give us the payoff we truly need.

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

I think that just like here on earth, the left and right would find some way to bury the latest Wankel engine.

Sure your guy could ship cheap energy (whatever form that takes) back to earth, but by the time the lobbyists for the petroleum industry, and the lobbyists for earth-based manufacturing unions got done, there'd be restrictions on how much could be shipped, restrictions on who could legally work in the supply chain jobs(from mining to retail delivery transport), and such a large tariff duty that the price would be well over that of the earth-side competition.

I'd suggest that your story take that sort of detour into the political side of all that, but alas, Mr. Heinlein got there before both of us in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" ;-)