We live in a unique two world environment - the Earth-Moon System. Earth’s offshore island the Moon is a stepping stone to the rest of the Solar System and a source of solutions to some of the most pressing environmental problems that we face on the Earth.

The Moon is the closest source of materials for doing anything in space. Right now we have to bring every single bit of material that we need for space operations at great expense from the bottom of the Earth’s deep gravity well.

However, it’s 22 times easier to launch from the Moon than from the Earth. The lack of an atmosphere on the moon also makes it possible to launch materials from the moon using electric motors rather than expensive rockets.

The moon is more than 40% oxygen by weight. Oxygen is the main component of rocket propellant. Much of the rest of lunar soil is silicon (useful for making solar cells) and metals like aluminum and iron. Thanks to the rock and soil return by Apollo astronauts and recent robotic probes we now have detailed knowledge of our nearest neighbor in space.

Clean solar energy can be sent from space to the earth with solar collectors in high Earth orbit made from lunar materials. A single solar power satellite could power a major Earth city without CO2 or other pollution. Since these systems provide power at night, energy from power satellites could charge electric cars, generate hydrogen from water, or make synthetic fuels for cars or aircraft during nighttime off-peak power times.

The moon is so close to the Earth (1.3 seconds for radio or light) that people can directly control lunar robots and other machines from Earth.

Once lunar materials are available for construction in space we can overcome many of the limits to space exploration that we currently take for granted. For example:

• We can shield astronauts from cosmic and solar radiation
• We can use beamed power to enable fast transportation in the solar system
• We can build large telescopes and other astronomical tools to learn much more about the universe and how it came to be.
• We can protect the Earth from the threat of impacts from asteroids and comets

In addition to using lunar materials to build solar power satellites we can collect energy on the moon’s surface and transmit it to the Earth. Eventually we may also collect Helium 3 trapped in moon soil which is an ideal low-radiation fusion fuel.

The moon’s close proximity to the Earth makes it a great place for humans to learn to live and work in space while still having frequent rescue and return opportunities.

The Moon provides an ideal place to backup the accumulated knowledge of mankind.

The far side of the Moon is the one place in the solar system permanently shielded from the radio and television signals constantly emitted from the Earth. This makes it ideal for radio astronomy.

The prevailing theory of the Moon’s origin is that it was created from a ring of debris that resulted from an ancient collision between the Earth and a lost planet that astronomers have dubbed Theia (the mother of the moon-goddess Selene in mythology.) So when we visit the moon we are, in a sense, reuniting with parts of ancient Earth.

Thinkers such as Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan and Konstantine Tsiolkovsky have suggested that it would be wise to spread humanity beyond the confines of our home planet in order to guarantee the preservation of our species. Space habitats constructed from material already in space (such as lunar or asteroid resources) can enable the near term humanization of the solar system. Even though there are no habitable planets in the solar system, Earthlike environments can be created once we have access to lunar and asteroid materials. NASA has conducted detailed studies on precisely how to do this. (cite NASA Stanford and other studies.)

By expanding the solution set to include resources outside the Earth’s biosphere we can solve seemingly intractable problems of energy and the environment and enable the remediation of the Earth.

Copyright 2007 Gregg E. Maryniak

Notes on Sources and reading

President’s National Commission on Space, Pioneering the Space Frontier, 1986.
NASA, Space Settlement’s A Design Study (NASA SP 413)
NASA, Space Resources and Space Settlements (NASA SP-428)
O’Neill, The High Frontier
Mackenzie, The Big Splat or How our Moon came to be.
Maryniak, Annotated John Marburger Speech at Goddard Space Flight Center