Apart from scientific and VERY wealthy tourist trips
1/6 gravity would be appealing for very rich to retire to. Only problem is it would be one way trip, returning to 1g after a year or more wouldn't be option for elderly. Very expensive for family to visit.
1/6 gravity would be appealing for very rich to retire to
How about a Fort Knox on the Moon? Some place for countries to securely hold physical reserves that materially back their currency.Just as the US Dollar is a de facto global reserve currency due to its use in the oil trade - perhaps in the coming space economy it won't really be oil, but rather water which is the vital substance that gets traded. So perhaps the Moon could become the site for a Fort Knox which maintains a physical reserve supply of water to be used in space.It might be rather fitting that life-giving water which sustains us would be the physical reserve for our space-based economy. And the Moon might be the best place to store large quantities of it.
According to some theories based on LCROSS data there maybe large reserves of gold in poles. Your idea of gold bank reserve may make it viable to mine especially if it doesn't need returning to earth in near future.
How do we draw more people to the Moon specifically? How do we incentivize them, how do we make the Moon a more appealing destination for travel and habitation?
I've never found a rational reason. If low gravity gave you a few years more, due to reduced stressed on the body, as suggested a few decades ago by A.C Clarke, then perhaps the retirement community model is possible, <snip>
Quote from: lamontagne on 12/03/2017 02:20 pmI've never found a rational reason. If low gravity gave you a few years more, due to reduced stressed on the body, as suggested a few decades ago by A.C Clarke, then perhaps the retirement community model is possible, <snip>OK, but IF that's the case (and this biomedical researcher thinks that's a big if), that's not going to be the only things required, is it? Who wants a few years more if it's just being stuck in a tube under 6 ft of regolith? These hypothetical OAPs are going to be coming out of the 1%, they will expect a certain standard of living. It's very much a catch-22, you need their money to build up a settlement, but you'll need to have built up the settlement to a certain standard before getting their money......