Comment On a practical note... (Score 2) 95
Now why live in Luna in the first place? Think about the possibilities for retirement homes, geriatric facilities and similar services. Also, those of us who've spent too much time tending the disabled --- meaning nonambulatory, no use of their arms and legs, need to turned in bed every 2 hours because they can't roll themselves over --- can see tremendous benefits. For one, at one-sixth G, even a bare rock floor is more comfortable than the best bed on Earth! And when you have to transfer someone in and out of a wheelchair a dozen or more times daily, get them in and out of the bathtub, etc., you have a lot of opportunities to drop someone. Not good. These folk can't guard themselcves with their arms like most folk, and many are severely osteoporotic. In short, you drop 'em, they break. Literally.
Now, the low-G environment would benefit geriatrics and people with other problems as well. Say people with long term heart problems, MS, ALS, CP, myasthenia gravis, etc. We really need to colonize the place. I'll damn sure invest in rehab facilities of that sort! And remember, you WILL be old and frail someday. Life can suck when you're 80 years old, and you're biggest fear is falling and cracking a hip!
Sure there are issues to be addressed before we can move in. Water, for one. But there may well be ice to be mined. O2 can be liberated from the rock (silicon dioxide). Power is everywhere on Luna. And being at the bottom of the much shallower Lunar gravity well makes it much easier to mount excpeditions to the asteroids, where all the lovely raw material for orbital manafacturing are waiting for us... We could do this today (or even twenty years ago), so why are we still Earthbound?
Nuff Sed,
MalTheElder
"It's raining soup, and we haven't discovered buckets yet."
--Robt. A. Heinlein
