Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED) - Part 1

Extensive Moon mining is not a good idea, Moon is already drifting away from Earth, mining will decrease Moon mass and make gravitational force between Earth and Moon weaker, if Moon goes away faster than it currently is... it will have a direct effect on seasons, ocean tides and weather on Earth, and some effects that we cannot predict in advance.

Asteroid mining, though expensive, could be alternative to Moon mining.
Mining wont do anything to the orbit of the moon. We've been mining the earth for thousands of years and havent effected the orbit of the planet one bit. It will be no different for the moon. To effect the moon's orbit we'd have to remove a massive chunk. Planet cracking type mining and that sort of mining is purely in the realm of scifi and well beyond out capability. Within our lifetimes we might be able to mine helium 3 and do some standard ore mining. Nothing that can harm the moon or our planet.
 
Mining wont do anything to the orbit of the moon. We've been mining the earth for thousands of years and havent effected the orbit of the planet one bit. It will be no different for the moon. To effect the moon's orbit we'd have to remove a massive chunk. Planet cracking type mining and that sort of mining is purely in the realm of scifi and well beyond out capability. Within our lifetimes we might be able to mine helium 3 and do some standard ore mining. Nothing that can harm the moon or our planet.
Mining Earth is different as most of the stuff we extract from mines on Earth stays on Earth, that is ,we are not taking the things we Mine on Earth, away from Earth in nya significant quantity, (most of the materiel is still on Earth somewhere).

Mining on Moon will decrease it's mass. Moon is just 1.23 % of Earth's mass, mining may decrease it further.
 
Apparently, the Moon accumulates an extra 1100 tonnes per year from in falling meteors and space dust. By the same process, the Earth gains an extra 40,000 tonnes per year. OTOH, Earth also loses mass due to the escape of hydrogen and helium. So the net loss for Earth is about 50,000 tones per year. :eek: Yet despite all these fluctuations, the Earth-Moon system is pretty stable. The Moon retreats from Earth about 4cm per year. And though this may have some disrupting effects many billions of years from now, the good news is that the Sun will die long before then.:yay:

So… moving a few tonnes of stuff back and forth between the Earth and Moon won’t do much.
 
I’ve got YouTube on my 4K telly going with NASA TV right now...

Edit:
Launch scrubbed with only 16 minutes before lift off... Dammit.
 
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Apparently, the Moon accumulates an extra 1100 tonnes per year from in falling meteors and space dust. By the same process, the Earth gains an extra 40,000 tonnes per year. OTOH, Earth also loses mass due to the escape of hydrogen and helium. So the net loss for Earth is about 50,000 tones per year. :eek: Yet despite all these fluctuations, the Earth-Moon system is pretty stable. The Moon retreats from Earth about 4cm per year. And though this may have some disrupting effects many billions of years from now, the good news is that the Sun will die long before then.:yay:

So… moving a few tonnes of stuff back and forth between the Earth and Moon won’t do much.
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I'm kind of in awe at how much more...futuristic this all looks compared to what was really just a few years ago. The privatization of space exploration is going to be an interesting thing to witness.
My brother mentioned that. He wasn't all that excited when I called him out, but after it started he was completely in awe of how it all looked. He said it, "looked like the future".
 

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