The Moon is made of...

What, if anything, might have made moon bases an established thing by now?
Soviets land first or also land on the moon with the intent of creating a moon base gap.

we actually decide to go to mars in the 80's, using the moon as a staging ground for practice and laboratory

that's about it
 
there really wasn't any justification for staying on the moon that couldn't be done from orbit.

that said going to mars, the moon would be a great laboratory for testing shelter effectiveness and long term effects ( which of course could also be tested in orbit )

there isn't much on the surface during this period that was useful. Helium3 I am not sure was as useful then, obviously the water that we have found could be useful.


Unless humanity is going somewhere else I don't see much reason that makes sense to go chill on the moon. if you can discover building material there to mine and then refine for construction it would be useful.
 

Archibald

Banned
Nixon listen to his transition team advisor, Nobel Prize (laser inventor) Charles Townes, in Janaury 1969, and Apollo does not stop. What help would be a Zond circumlunar shot before Apollo 8; plus a successfull Luna 15 in July 1969 bringing samples before Apollo 11.
 
Nixon listen to his transition team advisor, Nobel Prize (laser inventor) Charles Townes, in Janaury 1969, and Apollo does not stop. What help would be a Zond circumlunar shot before Apollo 8; plus a successfull Luna 15 in July 1969 bringing samples before Apollo 11.
no offence but how is that going to get a moon base? the moon simply wasn't exploitable at the time, and really isn't that exploitable now as it is much cheaper to source said items here.

now granted Apollo doesn't stop is a good start to keep the race going, but the race was effectively over as the soviets decided to focus on earth orbit. probes work nicely for going to take pics and do on site analysis, you need to get a reason for men to go, and stay. In that time frame I don't see a reason to go and stay unless mars is the goal in the 90's giving time to test and practice on the moon.

maybe even a dark side space telescope that is manned
 

Lusitania

Donor
I think the first question was if when Apollo 11 lands on moon or subsequent landings they discover huge veins of precious metals, platinum and rare earths. Or even let's say a debris from crashed space ship from long ago. (No usable technology)

How would those type of events of effected space travel? Would that of resulted in NASA continuing their missions and build bases. Or even forced the USSR to refocus their efforts to moon again?
 
Justifying the enormous expense of not just reaching the mon but setting up a base there would be the biggest challenge; remember in this scenario you have to actually haul all the materials for a permanent living space not just to low earth orbit as we have in OTL with the ISS, but several orders of magnitude further all the way to the moon.

The space race was largely driven by international politics (rather than a desire for scientific advancement or even exploitation) that don't exist in the same manner anymore, so you need to generate some other external pressure that would make such a massively expensive project politically viable.
 
I think the first question was if when Apollo 11 lands on moon or subsequent landings they discover huge veins of precious metals, platinum and rare earths

No material valuable enough to justify Lunar mining, excepting in-situ utilisation, as far as I can think
 
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