Lunar South Pole Landing Sites Studied

space.com ^ | 5 Jun 03 | Leonard David

[FierceDraka]

I have in mind more a "rape the solar system of its resources for economic and strategic profit" kinda thing.

YES! But wait until the Greenies start crying about us "despoiling the natural beauty of space".

When they try that, I will yank their helmets off, grind their rapidly dessicating faces into the dead lunar regolith, and scream into my comm, "IT'S DEAD, YOU MORON! IT'S NEVER BEEN ALIVE! NOTHING GROWS IN IT! NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO GROW IN IT!"

I will then take their water and recycle their biomass into something with a little more brians and aesthetic value, like a petunia.

[RightWhale]

NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO GROW IN IT!

Whoa. Put that bicycle helmet down and step back. Regolith will support plant life, with a little water and some other stuff.

[wasp69]

bttt

[Prof Engineer]

FOR LATER

[mvpel]

It's most certainly not impossible - two Saturn V flights could have hefted about enough cargo and four people to Mars for a two-year mission. There's also shuttle-derived heavy-lift vehicle concepts that could do the same thing.

It's a lot easier to build reliable and safe ships where your employees can actually breathe without a few tons of technology that you have to bring along with you.