The Moon Is No Place to Be

Let me go through the reasons why I don't believe the Moon is habitable.

First: Radiation. There is no shielding if you're on the surface. There is no atmosphere, nothing eqivalent to the Van Allen Belt. If you're on the surface, you're going to be exposed to the full force of the solar wind, not to mention cosmic rays. In short order, to borrow a phrase from Andy Weir's Mark Whatley, your cancers will have cancer.[1] The safer options would be to burrow deep and only spend much time on the surface at night, when you can use the Moon itself as a radiation shield. Daytime surface operations would be best handled by robots. But even they could break down from radiation. Not to mention if a solar storm sends a coronal mass ejection the Moon's way, being caught out on the surface would be a very bad thing.

Second: Dust and sand. Dust on Earth is soft. Sand is soft. On Earth, they are weathered; water and wind break down the jagged edges. Look at rocks that have been exposed for awhile, the edges are worn smooth. Water breaks down almost everything over time. The Appalachians are a very old mountain range that, in their youth, were likely as tall as the Himalayas. None of that happens on the Moon. As the Apollo astronauts found out, lunar dust gets everywhere. It will abrade everything. It will get into the mechanisms of any habitat. It will degrade optical sensors. It will erode everything.

Third: The gravity well of Earth. Almost everything will need to be send up from Earth, until such time, decades from now, that raw materials can be mined from asteroids. There are some raw materials, but not many. If there is water, it will be precious and likely fought over until exhausted by the tragedy of the commons.

The cost of sending anything to the Moon is exhorbitant. Artemis might lift 30 tons to the Moon, but that stuff has to be landed. If even a third of it is payload (ten tons), that works out to roughly $200,000 per pound ($4B/rocket). Plus, if it's needed on an emergency basis, it takes three days to get there, assuming that a rocket is fully fueled and sitting on Launch Pad 39B. If not, flinging something there will take months.[2]

Fourth: Lunar gravity. Humans have spent millions of years evolving to live on a 1G planet. We didn't evolve to live on a 1/6thG planet. It will take constant work for people to stay in shape to be able to tolerate a return to Earth, and, given human nature, long-term residents may not always put in the work. Further, any couple the desires to raise a family, including birthing children, will need to return home in order to do it. Having raising a child on the Moon will be a experiment on a nonconsenting individual, and we aren't Nazis.

I am sorry if I'm harshing somebody's calm about this. But I just don't see how the Moon will be habitable within the lifetimes of almost everyone reading this today. Not until somebody comes up with a far cheaper of launching mass to the Moon.
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[1] Mars, at least, has some atmosphere and increased distance from the Sun.
[2] There's the Starship booster, which has a better-than-even chance of blowing up.