Sorry to Crush Your Dreams, but We’re Not Colonizing Space Anytime Soon
Here&#x27;s a killer app for a Moon base: telescopes. Optical or radio-telescopes. Right now, we, the humankind, are willing to spend about $10 BN to put a telescope (James Webb) in a deep space orbit [1]. It might or might not get there in 2021, about 25 years after the start of the project. It will have a mirror with collecting area of 25 sqm, which is quite large, but substantially smaller than a lot of existing and planned Earth based telescopes that come at a much lower cost [2]. For example the European Extremely Large Telescope will have a collecting area of 978 sqm and cost about $1.5 BN [3].<p>A Moon-based telescope would marry the benefits of a space telescope (no perturbations caused by the atmosphere), with the benefits of being able to build on solid ground. Gravity is actually quite helpful if you need to keep a large structure well aligned. But not too much gravity, else it&#x27;s getting hard to erect the building. The gravity on the Moon (one sixth of ours) may be the sweet spot.<p>Oh, and half of the time, you have a huge mass of rock  between you and the Sun, which is quite helpful to reduce background noise. If you are worried about the light reflected by the Earth, then a quarter of the time you are facing away from both the Sun and the Earth, to get one of the darkest nights imaginable. And no radio polution at all, if you prefer to use a radio-telescope. Did I mention that radio-telescopes have a collecting area that put optical telescopes to shame? For example the Green Bank Telescope [4] has a collecting area of 9300 sqm.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_Webb_Space_Telescope" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_Webb_Space_Telescope</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_optical_reflecting_telescopes#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:Comparison_optical_telescope_primary_mirrors.svg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_optical_reflec...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Extremely_Large_Telescope" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Extremely_Large_Telescope</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Green_Bank_Telescope" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Green_Bank_Telescope</a>