Posts: 6210
From: Geneva, Switzerland
Registered: May 2006

posted 12-06-2006 10:12 AM               

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The Moon
Resources, Future Development and Settlement
Series: Springer Praxis Books
Subseries: Space Exploration
Schrunk, D., Sharpe, B., Cooper, B.L., Thangavelu, M.
Originally published by John Wiley and Sons
2nd ed., 2007, Approx. 400 p., Softcover
ISBN-10: 0-387-36055-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-387-36055-3

About this book

This successor edition will be lengthened, drawing on the latest satellite data to emphasize the power potential and communications advantages of Malapert Mountain in the South Polar region of the Moon, being the optimum location for the establishment of the first lunar base. It will follow the same theme as THE MOON 1st edition: concepts of space exploration from the Moon and discussions of Earth benefits will be expanded. A colour section depicting graphic images will be added in the 2nd edition and the number of appendices will be reduced.

The Moon - Challenge and Benefits of Settlement tells the story of the feasible transformation of the Moon into an inhabited sister planet of the Earth in the coming century. Beginning with small-scale, tele-operated and autonomous robotic in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) projects, electric power, communication, and transportation networks could be manufactured from lunar resources. These infrastructure networks would be field-tested and commissioned in the south polar region of the Moon, and permanent human outposts could then be established. Through several phases of development, the utility networks would grow, and the number of permanently inhabited bases could increase to include all areas of interest on the Moon. The book stresses that the Planet Moon Project would link the technological and cultural expertise of humanity to the virtually limitless resources of space. From that beginning, the people of the Earth could reap substantial benefits from space, and the human species would evolve into a spacefaring civilisation.