Moon 2.0

From Facebook------------------------------------------------- Diana Clark-Baty "provides us hope that we can completely destroy this planet and start the destruction process over on another...." Yesterday at 2:52pm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Lola Chang "Maybe if they can send us to the moon en mass it'll take the load off Mother Earth???" Yesterday at 4:24pm --------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Prescott "it cost trillions to get 13 men to the Moon, so finding water on the Moon means very little for humanity in terms of our survival. It is intellectually interesting in terms of the formation of the Moon / Earth / Solar System, but this needs to be put in perspective of how much we still need to understand and protect our home planet. I think a new space race would be stupid when we face immediate problems that are still not being addressed here. I consider understanding the Moon to be a massive displacement activity, which illustrates that we are finding it hard to confront problems closer to home." 10 hours ago

“Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.” - C.S. Lewis,

How will finding water on the Moon help us protect the Earth? Because exploring the Moon gives us an unrivaled perspective on the Earth. Apollo gave us our first views of the Earth as a whole. It's easy to underestimate how important that has been to our sense of our planet. But it's also easy to overestimate our own insight. We are still very parochial in our outlook - we can't help it, our species evolved to be parochial. We have never until now had to think of the planet as a whole. We need to explore the Moon to understand how special the Earth is. It is only by looking back we can see what we have left.

Pretty basic really: Build moon base- mine silicon. Fling silicon into earths orbit. Build orbiting forge, smelt silicon using solar radiation Build huge solar panels out of silicon, put in earths orbit Beam free, safe solar power down from orbit to receivers on earth (in a way that will not harm anything if the beams miss) See this report from the 1970s describing it in more detail. http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/75SummerStudy/Chapt5.html Also - it is now possible to make rocket fuel on the moon, so less launches will be required from Earth in 2050 or so.