A number of posts over the years that I’ve been running this website have been about space. These posts aren’t as popular as the posts I’ve written about small towns in Wisconsin or daily life in rural America, but I’m fine with that. My understanding is that people like to read about places they’ve actually been or things they’ve actually done. They like things that are relatable to their lives, you know? Space is not a place many people have visited, and so far my blog hasn’t been lucky enough to be discovered by the handful of space explorers who can claim they’ve ventured beyond the earth’s atmosphere. So why am I writing about the moon if I’m fully aware that my audience probably isn’t going to be as interested in the subject, you ask? A few weeks back if you were watching the news you may have noticed something that they slipped in between the segments devoted to politics, crime, or politically-motivated crime. Many of you probably had better things to do than watch the evening news from start to finish, so allow me to fill you in on what you may have missed: the United States (by way of a company called Intuitive Machines and with help from SpaceX) managed to put a lander on the moon. We’ve done it again folks, we made it. In spite of all the doubters and to the joy of space geeks everywhere the United States has once again orchestrated a successful moon landing.
Sure, the Odysseus lander may have been an unmanned mission with a probe that only operated for a few days, but that’s still more than the United States has been doing for nearly my dad’s entire lifetime as far as the moon is concerned. In case you couldn’t guess, I’m pretty excited about the exploration of the moon. The Odysseus landing and the upcoming manned Artemis missions (those ones will have actual people on board) are in my opinion a big deal. The question I find myself asking as the initial glow begins to fade and reality sets in is how big a deal should moon exploration be? I’m not the only one asking himself that question; even if it doesn’t come up as often as some other subjects, everyone has their own opinion about space exploration. Some people think it’s a waste of money that could go toward projects here on earth, some people think expanding to the stars as fast as possible is the only way humankind can avoid extinction, others think that it’ll kick off a new era of “pioneer spirit” that’ll revive the rugged and innovative energy that made America great while weeding out the weak, and then there’s the majority of people who don’t have strong opinions on the matter and fall somewhere in the middle. Recently (AKA: a few months ago) I read an interesting book on space exploration and colonization called A City on Mars. Despite the title it focused on space settlement as a whole, with multiple chapters devoted to the fine details of living on the moon. It’s a good read, and it changed my perspective on space travel. As the Artemis missions draw ever closer, there’s going to be more and more people with their own opinions on what the future of the moon looks like sharing their ideas with the world, so I thought I’d take the chance to show off how smart I am by regurgitating some of the lessons I learned from reading Kelly and Zach Weinersmith’s book.
One of the first lessons that I learned from Kelly and Zach’s book is something I was already aware of in an abstract sense but that didn’t fully sink in until they underlined it: space doesn’t like people, nor does the moon. There’s no oxygen (we all know that much), but there’s also no atmosphere to protect our bodies from space radiation. Since no one’s spent enough time in space to give us an understanding of what the long-term impact of exposure to the background radiation of the cosmos (the record for longest time in space is 437 days) a lot of people tend to forget it’s an issue. The moon seems safer in theory because you can stand on it, and because in the pictures it resembles a sandy wasteland. Wastelands are something we have here on earth, and although living in such places is difficult there have been entire cultures who’ve managed to adapt to those conditions and sustain themselves for centuries. That’s why the idea of a moon colony is popular with the type of people who see space as a chance to become rough and manly pioneers. Unfortunately it turns out that the lunar surface isn’t coated in sand, it’s coated in knives. Specifically, it’s coated in razor-sharp fragments of stone called lunar regolith. According to the astronauts with firsthand experience it sticks to everything, gums up and wears down mechanical components, darkens surfaces so that they attract more light and can overheat, and due to the fact it’s composed of countless tiny points it’s theorized that exposing human skin or lungs to moon dust could do some major damage. On top of that the only place we know for sure there’s water on the moon is as ice on the South Pole, and there’s not enough for everybody if some sort of land rush kicks off. Plus, don’t forget that the moon also lacks an atmosphere, meaning all that space radiation I mentioned earlier is still a problem.
Now that I’ve explained just a few of the many problems with space colonization, I can already hear the people who want to flee earth’s problems or see space travel as a way to become tougher complaining. Their counterargument to all the stuff I mentioned is that none of those things will get solved unless we make some mistakes to learn from. They’re all about taking risks, making hard choices, being pioneers! The Chinese space program is talking about going to the moon to extract resources, so obviously we can’t let them get ahead of America and steal all the stuff we didn’t know we wanted until they brought it up. The funny thing about that is that after doing a little research you may find that no one can really agree on what it is we’re supposed to mine and/or extract once we get to the moon. All the resources we could dig up on the lunar surface are things we can find here on earth, and we don’t need to design all-new technology capable of withstanding moon dust or functioning without air to get it. Once you manage to actually extract anything from the moon, then you have to ship it all back to earth; how much money do you think you’d make if you had to use rockets to ship all your merchandise back to earth? The big thing that everyone talks about is Helium-3 mining, but as it turns out no one really knows what to do with it. China said they’d mine it, and the US said they’d mine it, but the only justification seems to be that the other person wants it so we can’t let them have it. Now imagine you have to live in a little bubble surrounded by death with that as your only justification for being there. Space isn’t for families of rugged pioneers, folks, it’s for paranoid nerds who don’t dare start a family because it’d endanger the oxygen supply.
If space sucks so much, you’d think my opinion on the matter would be that we all stop spending money on space exploration and stick with things here on earth. You’d be wrong, but I can see where you’d get confused. Many of the wilder plans for mankind’s future in space should probably be reined in a tad for the next few decades, or at least until we manage to figure out some tricks to get around the problems up there, but we can’t stop entirely. No one ever learns to overcome a challenge by completely giving up, but by taking your time and examining the facts you can eventually overcome major obstacles. Plus, I can’t help but find the people who say science as a whole is a waste of money so annoying that I want space exploration to do well just to prove them wrong. America used to be the home of major innovations, and while we’re still pretty smart it seems like we’ve prioritized economic success over actually improving or maintaining things. Plus, I hate the Chinese government and want to remind their people that the USA’s way of doing things can reach farther than their way can. Yep, that’s right, my support of space exploration is fueled entirely by patriotism and spite. If we leave space to be the domain of foreign nations and billionaire jerk wads who refuse to use their money for anything else, we’ll never hear the end of it!
Even if you don’t care about the political side of it, getting back on the moon should still fill us all with a dash of pride and excitement. We’ve been in a rut of war, border debates, and political infighting lately, but now we’ve got an event to talk about where no one died, no one got hurt, and no one really stepped on anyones toes at all. This is something that should remind us of what we can do together, and how far we can go. So put your latest argument aside for a moment, find someone who isn’t too busy wherever you currently are, and give them a high five- we’re back on the moon!
The Archivist's Pen 