Placing a city (or several) on the moon has long been a dream of science fiction writers, futurists ...

1. Tech We’d Just Like to always be able to See: Cities
on the Moon
Placing a city (or several) on the moon has long been a dream of science fiction writers, futurists and
ambitious scientists. Recently however, renewed public interest in space exploration, together with a
growing realization that the world is becoming dangerously overpopulated, has lead some scientists,
artists and zealous would-be lunar colonists to start taking this ages-old dream extremely seriously.
Why we want it:
Because it could potentially be one of the only non-genocidal solutions to the eventual
overpopulation of planet earth. Also, who wouldn’t want to sit on the moon and watch the
Earth rise?
When can we expect it?
A couple of years ago, a group called Moon Capital launched a high profile competition, allowing
scientists, architects and aspiring artists the chance to create scientifically plausible scenes of moon
colonisation (in the style made famous by super-artist Chesley Bonestell).
The competition had (hypothetical) moon colonisation taking place in the year 2068. This estimate
was good enough for the entrants of the competition, so it’ll be good enough for us, too.
Hopefully, then, you’ll get your lunar colony in about 55 years time (just under a hundred
years after Neil Armstrong took that one small step....)
Of course, the problems posed by such a feat of engineering are many-fold. For starters, the moon is
some 380,000 km away from us at any given time, (which is quite a trip for a moving van, even
taking speed cameras out of the equation), then there’s the difficulty of actually building a
working city in such a hostile environment...
We’ve built space stations, of course, so we know we can construct things in space, but they
aren’t exactly desirable places to live. Also, we can get people to the moon and back
(we’ve been at it since the 60’s, no matter what the conspiracy nuts tell you), but the
trip is still intensely dangerous and requires a great deal of training and preparation.
Finally, we come to the complete lack of breathable atmosphere on the moon; this would require
scientists to create some sort of artificial environment (or else speed up development of
terraforming methods, but that’s a story for another time).
Oh yeah, there’s no food either, not unless you like your Selenite steaks rare.
Yes, the idea of colonising the moon poses a number of mind-boggling obstacles, but if
there’s one thing that we as a species excel at, its overcoming obstacles.
So, while it may seem far-fetched to imagine something like this actually happening, consider this;
the first powered flight took place in 1903 and just 66 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
were hanging out on the moon. Think on that for a second.
Cool Factor: 5/5

2. Cities on the moon? Now that’s cool.
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