DailyDirt: That's No Moon...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Nov 30th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The moon is a nice place to visit, but you probably wouldn't want to live there. We've left quite a bit of space junk behind on the surface of our nearest natural satellite, but maybe someday we will go back and clean up after ourselves. Here are just a few more quick links about some moon projects.

Shackleton Energy wants to be the first company to set up a lunar base for mining the moon and offering a re-fueling depot for spacecraft. If you think gas prices are high, the prices for refueling cryogenic liquid propellants in space are insane... [url]
NASA has released a detailed map of the moon using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. A single pixel on this map corresponds to about 100 meters of elevation on the moon. [url]
If you've ever wondered what the moon smells like... there's an app for that. Spoiler: It smells like gunpowder, not cheese. [url]
To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: lunar base, lunar reconnaissance orbiter, moon, moon smell, re-fueling station
Companies: nasa, shackleton energy

3 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 30 Nov 2011 @ 9:44pm

I know this is a silly question, but how the heck does this "mining" company propose to get all the piece parts necessary to conduct mining operations to the moon in the first place? Funny that the concerns attributed to NASA are directed to what can be done after something has been mined, but not a single one about how the necessary equipment to conduct the needed mining will be shipped to its end destination.
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Michael Ho (profile), 30 Nov 2011 @ 11:32pm

Re:
hmm. getting inanimate objects to the moon shouldn't be as hard as getting people back to the moon... so remote-controlled mining equipment shouldn't be as hard as you make it sound?

NASA has already awarded centennial prizes for its regolith excavation challenge:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/centennial_challenges/regolith/re golith_results_detail.html
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lrobbo (profile), 10 Jun 2012 @ 8:03am

Amazing to think just what junk we have polluted outersapce with.
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