"The Moon is Looking Better than Ever as a second..." Topic

…. HOME FOR HUMANS.

"Space rock showers, poison dust, killer radiation next to zero atmosphere—the moon seems inhospitable until you look into its past.

Mars is the obvious first choice for future space colonization. Though the Red Planet hardly has more of an atmosphere than our moon and is incessantly bombarded with cosmic radiation, the hype mostly comes from the prospect of exploring a planet we've never put boots on before. There are already footprints on the moon. We've brought back moon rocks and moon dust. But. NASA has recently found evidence that our satellite once had an atmosphere, and that could make it that much more attractive for anyone looking to get off this planet…."
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Amicalement
Armand

If we keep needing others to take us into space …

It might be Russia or China who end up settling there first:

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Dan

We're probably better off with O'Neil cylinders which we can finetune to be "just right" rather than try to keep people on worlds that are made mostly of inconvenience.

We may have bases and mining facilities on the Moon and the various planets, but living in space is probably easier to the point that we could much more easily recreate earth-like conditions and not worry that gravity isn't strong enough or worry about inhaling moon dust that makes asbestos seem mild in comparison.

I agree with living in space, though the O'Neil Cylinder might be too big for a first project. Burrow into an asteroid and spin it. Mars and the moon are still gravity wells and provide very little help towards human survival. Learn to live without a planet and you can live anywhere.

But The Moon could be a good staging area, and it's looking like a better and better one as time goes by.