If you had to pick a planet, you could do much worse than Earth. However, there’s been some recent talk of living on the moon—in tunnels. Let’s see how that might play out.
Mammoth Cave was the site of an experiment that housed people with tuberculosis in what was believed to be an environment conducive to their recovery. The experiment failed. For people dying from consumption, living in a cold, dark, and damp environment was a bad idea. Mammoth Cave was also proposed as a site to store crackers as a food source for those who survived a nuclear attack. Not quite sure what bright government official thought people could survive on a diet of Saltines, but since air from outside gets in just as water from outside gets into the cave, the government gave up on storing crackers in Mammoth Cave. Anyway, as any surface dweller knows, living underground has some disadvantages on Earth though there are many critters—and maybe some humans—that love that environment and are adapted to life below the surface. But permanent spelunking?
The cold, dampness, and dark of Mammoth Cave just don’t make the place good for permanent habitation. So, some are saying, why not live underground on the moon? Sure, it’s cold there, too, and also dark underground, but dampness wouldn’t be a problem, and definitely there wouldn’t be any influx of outside air from that airless surface. That’s the plan now. Yes, the plan is to live in tunnels under the moon’s surface. Supposedly, life underground will be free from the threats solar radiation and incoming bolides—threats mostly quashed on Earth by a protective atmosphere.
A half century after we landed on the moon, we’re interested once again in going back, not just for a brief visit, but for a long stay. Why? Everything about the project is challenging. Will a number of people be able to sustain themselves in an underground habitat on an airless body with only frozen water to draw from rocks containing the remains of comets? Will a number of people be able to live in peace in an artificially lighted tunnel? And what if one of those passing celestial objects hits the tunnel’s roof and punches a hole? Who plugs the leak fast enough to prevent the loss of oxygen?
President Kennedy inspired the nation to go to the moon “not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” Okay, that motivation seemed to work in the 1960s and Cold War conditions, but now? Just “because it is hard” doesn’t seem to be a particularly inspiring notion. Permanently living on the moon would be extraordinarily hard.
Has anyone in NASA or in the world of dreamers ever noticed that we have a planet and ready-made “natural” tunnels. Mammoth Cave is, not to brag, mammoth. We could put lots of people in there. Then what? One needs to ask the same question with regard to living beneath the moon’s surface. Okay, you get there; you dig, and you solve all the technical problems at a cost many times that of those first moon landings. And then what?
I thought the idea of seeking shelter was to make life easier: On Earth, for example, shelters keep us free from drenching rain, or scorching heat, or dangerous animals and bugs, from lightning strikes, from winds, from…. All extraterrestrial bodies that we currently know seem to require 24/7 efforts for humans just to barely stay alive. And I haven’t even mentioned the effect of the moon’s reduced gravitational pull on the human body. Remember, astronauts have to exercise hours each day just to maintain their basic muscle and bone mass in microgravity. They would weigh more on the moon than in a space station, but only one-sixth of their earth-weight. How long would it take for a lazy underground astronaut to lose muscle and bone mass in a body that evolved on the bigger Earth? So, think before you sign up to live in a moon tunnel.
Regardless of its many potential threats, Earth is a great planet on which to live? Aren’t you glad you chose this one?
Mammoth Cave was the site of an experiment that housed people with tuberculosis in what was believed to be an environment conducive to their recovery. The experiment failed. For people dying from consumption, living in a cold, dark, and damp environment was a bad idea. Mammoth Cave was also proposed as a site to store crackers as a food source for those who survived a nuclear attack. Not quite sure what bright government official thought people could survive on a diet of Saltines, but since air from outside gets in just as water from outside gets into the cave, the government gave up on storing crackers in Mammoth Cave. Anyway, as any surface dweller knows, living underground has some disadvantages on Earth though there are many critters—and maybe some humans—that love that environment and are adapted to life below the surface. But permanent spelunking?
The cold, dampness, and dark of Mammoth Cave just don’t make the place good for permanent habitation. So, some are saying, why not live underground on the moon? Sure, it’s cold there, too, and also dark underground, but dampness wouldn’t be a problem, and definitely there wouldn’t be any influx of outside air from that airless surface. That’s the plan now. Yes, the plan is to live in tunnels under the moon’s surface. Supposedly, life underground will be free from the threats solar radiation and incoming bolides—threats mostly quashed on Earth by a protective atmosphere.
A half century after we landed on the moon, we’re interested once again in going back, not just for a brief visit, but for a long stay. Why? Everything about the project is challenging. Will a number of people be able to sustain themselves in an underground habitat on an airless body with only frozen water to draw from rocks containing the remains of comets? Will a number of people be able to live in peace in an artificially lighted tunnel? And what if one of those passing celestial objects hits the tunnel’s roof and punches a hole? Who plugs the leak fast enough to prevent the loss of oxygen?
President Kennedy inspired the nation to go to the moon “not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” Okay, that motivation seemed to work in the 1960s and Cold War conditions, but now? Just “because it is hard” doesn’t seem to be a particularly inspiring notion. Permanently living on the moon would be extraordinarily hard.
Has anyone in NASA or in the world of dreamers ever noticed that we have a planet and ready-made “natural” tunnels. Mammoth Cave is, not to brag, mammoth. We could put lots of people in there. Then what? One needs to ask the same question with regard to living beneath the moon’s surface. Okay, you get there; you dig, and you solve all the technical problems at a cost many times that of those first moon landings. And then what?
I thought the idea of seeking shelter was to make life easier: On Earth, for example, shelters keep us free from drenching rain, or scorching heat, or dangerous animals and bugs, from lightning strikes, from winds, from…. All extraterrestrial bodies that we currently know seem to require 24/7 efforts for humans just to barely stay alive. And I haven’t even mentioned the effect of the moon’s reduced gravitational pull on the human body. Remember, astronauts have to exercise hours each day just to maintain their basic muscle and bone mass in microgravity. They would weigh more on the moon than in a space station, but only one-sixth of their earth-weight. How long would it take for a lazy underground astronaut to lose muscle and bone mass in a body that evolved on the bigger Earth? So, think before you sign up to live in a moon tunnel.
Regardless of its many potential threats, Earth is a great planet on which to live? Aren’t you glad you chose this one?
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