On one hand, this is a momentous day for private space flight. On the other, we're closer to Moon lobbyists than ever.
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(And for those inclined to take that as their cue to strike the fashionable misanthropic pose where they claim that would be a good thing, remember: The moon is a dead, sterile rock. The Moon has no copyright law because there is no creative activity of any kind there taking place that could be copyrighted. There is nothing there to abuse, no "environment" to foul, no natives to exploit, nothing, not even bacteria. The alternative to humans going there is death, forever. And not "human" death, either, but total death. No life. Deader than the worst possible nuclear holocaust could ever make Earth. If that is truly your position, fine, but I hope I can at least remove the fashionableness from your pose.)
I agree with the sentiment of your post, but this is incorrect. The Moon is a uniquely pristine environment that holds irreplaceable evidence regarding the formation of both our and other solar systems. It may even contain bacteria, trapped long-dead within meteorites, that could tell us more about the development of life on Earth or elsewhere.
It is of huge importance that we are able to extract as much of this information as possible before we start tearing it up.
Also an entire solar system and indeed an entire universe full of further such stuff.
Space is big.
This is a terrible argument.
Don't forget that stuff in space affects other stuff in space. Let humans do as they please in the moon and they might affect a thin balance between the Earth and the Moon.
Earthquakes on Earth can shift its axis[0]. Seeing as ehe Moon has approximately 1/4 Earth's diameter, 1/50 Earth's volume, and 1/80 Earth's mass, it is a much more fragile place than Earth and what's to say that an accidental explosion could not affect its orbit? The slighest change would probably affect tides in Earth.
Even if that is not much plausible (I'm not an expert), what about simply extracting rocks to sell as moon suveneirs? That alone would ammount to change its mass > gravity > orbit.
[0] - http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-12/world/japan.earthquake.ts...
Let's say we start extracting rocks from the moon. Let's say we get SO enthusiastic about this that our extraction of rocks from the moon becomes equivalent to the total amount of iron mined every year on Earth. That's a completely ridiculous thing to suppose, but let's roll with it. That's 2,400,000,000 tons of stuff removed from the moon every year. A big number, right?
The mass of the moon, however, is 73,477,000,000,000,000,000 tons. So at this completely ridiculous rate of mining, it would take just over 306 MILLION YEARS to change the mass of the moon by even 1%.
So, what would happen if we did change the mass of the moon by that much? Answer: basically nothing. The moon has been slowly spiralling away from the earth since its formation, meaning its gravitational effects are decreasing all the time, to no ill effect. 306 million years from now, it will have lost much more than 1% of its tidal influence on earth -- and nobody will be the wiser. It just doesn't matter that much.
In short, he notion that the gravity of the moon could be upset by us mining for trinkets is as preposterous as the notion that my sneeze in London could collapse a skyscraper in Chicago.
By the time we've "wrecked" all that precious precious data about the formation of the solar system we'll have better recording equipment than we can even dream of now anyhow, since we're talking centuries and centuries from now in the "best" case. Not to mention we'll have visited a few other places in this case.
That aside, here's some elaboration.
Trillions of meteorites have landed on the Moon's surface since its formation. Some of these may be remnants from violent collisions between other planetary bodies. A few of these events may have happened at a time where life was starting on Earth. An tiny portion of these pieces of rock may actually contain fossil evidence of early life, in the form of bacteria or complex biochemistry. Similar evidence that once existed on Earth is likely to have been destroyed by our active geology, or by more recent biological processes.
The likelihood of life being preserved in this manner is so vanishingly small that, out of the trillions of meteorites on the Moon's surface (an area around 20% larger than that of Africa), only a minute number of them are likely to contain anything like it.
It would be a shame if the key to understanding abiogenesis was lost in an industrial rock-grinder.
"I'm afraid I can't release the name of the individual," Dr. Zimmat explained, "however by using the network of cameras in downtown London and correlating with the time our models show an unusual movement of air, we can with 90%+ certainty say that a gentleman's sneeze in the wrong direction is ultimately to blame".
Investigators for London Yard remain mute on whether any action is being taken, while inside sources state that it would be hard to prove anything more than unintentional manslaughter. US investigators, however, are working on a theory that members of Al Quaida may have planted a mole in London to execute the sneeze.
1/2 :-)