RE: Colonizing Mars: How Science Fiction Gets it Wrong
How do you know that to be true? Is there empirical evidence to support that claim? How big is the data sample?
Assuming that it's true what is the cut off point? How much gravity is required?
The moon is a 'meterorite catcher' for earth. It sweeps them out of the sky before they hit us. If it wasn't for the moon we'd have a LOT more impacts. Oddly enough there is a class of meteorite called 'carbonaceous chondrite'
note the word 'carbon'?
Most of them contain water or minerals that have been altered in the presence of water, and some of them contain larger amounts of carbon as well as organic compounds. This is especially true for the carbonaceous chondrites that have been relatively unaltered by heating during their history.
On earth most of the readily available metal is...guess what? It's mined from ancient meteor impacts. From orbital survey and observation the moon has been found to have a BUNCH of meteor craters. Gravitational anomalies , sometimes called mascons suggest that the impactors were dense. Metal perhaps?
The moon has a very thin atmosphere, almost none, that means that it receives the full impact of sunlight. Solar collectors, both voltaic and heat producing should work FINE. No attenuation due to atmosphere. That's a feature not a bug.
When digging out the tunnels for the habitations, the same as you suggest be done on mars, it would be easier without the extra gravity AND...all those mascons, a chemical supermarket full of metals and carbon...just sitting. there. The crust already has plenty of oxygen.
Making CO2 won't be hard.
Woah there. We're not fighting each other for dear life. This is just academic discussion. No need to be so defensive.
It was in a thing I read once. I don't remember specifics, it was many years ago and I didn't save it. It had to do with raising rats in microgravity, and in spinning centrifuges that could simulate the gravity on the Moon and Mars.
The thing about metal availability comes from something Robert Zubrin wrote. I don't know what he bases it on but I consider him an authority on the topic of Mars colonization.
It sounds like you are just very passionate for a Moon base. I didn't mean to diminish or step on that dream. No doubt there will one day be manned bases on the Moon.