this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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Futurology
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Seriously. I don't understand and never understood how this wasn't the very obvious first step.
People might still die. Unfortunately there's no way around that. But there's a massive difference between "help is 7 days away with an emergency launch" and "help is never coming". I'm not sure the exact time scales they could get emergency readiness for, but I can tell you it's a whole hell of a lot faster than it is for everything to align for a mars mission.
Also, if deaths do happen, you can learn a whole hell of a lot more about means of failure investigating the issue on the moon.
It's more like 3, and you can talk to people on the ground with just some lag, too (although you need a satellite rebroadcast when over the dark side).
Mars, on the other hand, is months away, may not be exitable at all at a given time with a given craft, and has latency similar to a carrier pigeon with an SD card strapped to it.
I just didn't want to pretend it was an hour. Response time would definitely be dependent on your investment, the urgency of the situation, etc, but even on the longer end of the spectrum, there are a lot of failures you are able to recover from that you couldn't on Mars. "This critical component we will die without is degrading 1% per week" gives you plenty of time to solve the problem on the moon and no chance in hell on Mars.
Plus once you get it working, you can set up retirement communities up there. Gives old people a chance to take a pioneering risk so we can sort out the kinks and grow the space with purpose, and makes them feel a lot better being in microgravity.
I’ve even got a slogan! It’s cheesy and totally 1950s sci-fi, so perfect!
“Retire in comfort on the moon, where 1/6 gravity makes old bodies feel new again!”
Yep, figure out Moon dust solutions and Mars becomes a bit easier. But absolutely the distance is key, and the Moon isn't THAT easy to get to, but at least it's less than years away, one way.