RE: China landing on the darkside of the moon. Fact or fakenews?
I for one would welcome the news, and I hope it is true!
As far as "rare earth elements", we are quite a ways from exploiting even the most basic and valuable ones. Take Helium 3 for example. He3 is a neutron deficient isotope of He4. It is very useful in the current iterations of Fusion Reactor Generators. But even collecting this abundant gas from the Moon is cost prohibitive by orders of magnitude, from what I have read in the last couple of years. A sovereign nation would have to develop a CHEAP Method of transport of this very light gas back to Earth, and that does not yet exist. Maybe a railgun gas cylinder transport system, which fires cylinders that are charged with He3 that has been liberated from Moon Rocks? Lots of infrastructure needed. But obviously the first steps are being taken.
I read a few years ago about a theoretical space lift...either way, its exciting to go back to the moon with our more advanced technology and do some more exploring, although its strange how its probably easier to go to the moon than it is to explore the deepest oceans here on earth!
That's IT! Space Lift, I could not remember the name.
Yes, and a space lift based on rail gun tech (magnetic accelerator rams, etc.) would be relatively cheap to shoot stuff back to Earth as compared to shooting loads to the Moon. Some sort of way to use Lunar Elements for building blocks would be highly preferable to shipping everything up there. We used to do folders of Space Projects in grade school and up, I remember
"Project 3 by Bobby G" at one point LOL
We were doing these just as the Lunar Missions were ending, and still fresh in the public memory. Thanks for bringing these back to my mind, Nathen LOL