How Do You Find the Moon’s Best Picnic Spot?

[@TheImmortuary]

Its not the heat and cold that directly causes road damage, its the expansion of water when it transitions back and forth between liquid and solid that does the most damage to roads. Thats why the road is designed the way it is, to shed water first and foremost, but the underlying granulars are meant to drain, not retain, water for that reason. More damage happens in the Spring and fall of the year, in areas that transition between freezing and thawing on daily basis.

[@solsystem1342]

There is still a reason bridges have some "give" to them. Also, you don't usually see monthly temperature swings of hundreds of degrees on earth.

[@tomstamford6837]

Roads in temperate countries also degrade.

[@Jerorawr_XD]

Settling in caves would also, I imagine, save billions on the amount of materials needed to construct such bases, And make the process a whole lot quicker. So this is a great idea all around. In survival, why build a shelter when nature provides one?

[@eSKAone-]

Exactly. Why not just keep earth healthy first, instead of making an enormous carbon footprint in trying to reach for the stars. We have hundreds of millions of years left. Eventually technology will make it way easier an cleaner. Don't stress it, I would say.

[@robertt9342]

@@eSKAone-. Got it, why can’t someone else (future) do it? It’s why we have environmental problems now, and people are not to keen on protecting the habitats they exist in. This all being said, why not have both? This isn’t interstellar travel.

[@tomstamford6837]

You would still need to build structures to house inhabitants, equipment, etc. There is the added difficulty of getting that equipment into the holes, whichever orientation they are. Would be far simpler to build structures and bury them under regolith.

[@mikicerise6250]

@@eSKAone- Reaching for the stars doesn't make an enormous carbon footprint. Your KZbin habit does.

[@mischarowe]

@@eSKAone- Hundreds of millions of years until what? There are a number of ways life on Earth could become extinct.

[@PlanetaryTyler]

Super exciting to see my work featured in the video! I'm really looking forward to this new era of human space exploration, I hope to continue having some small part in it moving forward. :)

[@robinleeann]

The whole time I just couldn't stop thinking about the book *Artemis*, where people live in domes on the Moon. They call their moon town Artemis too.

[@Timmycoo]

I was under the assumption that a target for habitation would be a crater(s) that are hidden to daylight at all times and have access to frozen water. Therefor it has an almost steady temperature, almost hidden from cosmic rays, and has an area to mine for H2O for both energy use and for water/breathing. Forgot if I heard that on this channel back in the day or PBS Spacetime.

[@andymanaus1077]

When discussing settlement difficulties, the razor-sharp lunar regolith is also a major concern. The Apollo missions struggled with dust and fines infiltrating their suits and vehicles. Over time, these materials can cause severe damage and wear to critical parts, not to mention the risk to human lungs and other tissues.

[@Charok1]

Man leaves cave, Man returns to cave.

[@smithfield06]

Only way to be sure about the viability of living in caverns, is to send in a robot probe to gather data in these caves

[@K1ddkanuck]

Not gonna lie, before the video cut to the narrator's face, I legit thought they managed to land Neil de Grasse Tyson as a guest presenter.

[@joyl7842]

Pits like this could also be perfect to construct a landing/launchpad for the Lunar Starship. It should make it a lot easier to prevent dust and debris from being kicked up.

[@Beryllahawk]

The real question is going to be how we handle the lunar regolith itself, and the dust from that regolith. There's potential trouble there, but I feel very confident that NASA has its best minds attacking all those problems with tenacity and energy!!

[@NukeMarine]

Best starting point are likely the craters around the poles. There'll be areas that are completely blocked off from sunlight and solar radiation. On top of that, there'll likely be frozen water deposits from ancient comet strikes that weren't melted away by the sun due to landing in the crater. Obviously, the crater in this video would be great to have a auxiliary base that close to the equator.

[@alien9279]

You need the solar power though. And the poles are pretty cold

[@NullHand]

And the hardest radiation to shield from is cosmic gamma rays. Needs about 5m of rock to get to Earth surface normal. And it is omnidirectional. Not just from the sun.

[@NullHand]

@@alien9279 The poles are currently the best place for solar power, if that is gonna be your source. Every other part of the moon has a 2 week long night. Which means one heavy mass Powerwall....

[@Rattus-Norvegicus]

I was not aware that there are caves on the moon, hmm, I suppose I never really thought about it. It makes sense that we should explore them, I'd be curious about the geological aspects and excited to finally break ground on our new moon base with a glass dome over it.

[@vincentvoillot6365]

It's not really cave like on Earth. It is ancient lava tubes (think volcano shaft), lava is gone and the cavities left behing didn't collapse thanks to the low lunar gravity. ;)

[@robbabcock_]

Lunar caves are definitely our best bet for permanent stations/bases on the moon.

[@writerblocks9553]

Moon cavemen. That is all.

[@clair_obscur26]

there's just one issue... From all of the sci-fi movies I've ever seen, this cave is probably inhabited by monstrous space spiders

[@tomstamford6837]

Yep, the conspiracists have been telling us for years that the aliens won't let us stay there.

[@screamsofthedead]

You could probably get some sort of heating/cooling system going if there was something outside that soaked in the sun to heat cave air up. 62F is cold. Hot take, I know. lol

[@solsystem1342]

Yea, running a heater in 62°f weather is not going to break your power budget but, +-100 degrees will definitely kick up how much you'll have to spend on heating/cooling (if it wasn't built in the cave). Also, everything that takes power to run (including the crew) will generate heat. It's plausible the colony could get warm enough from sun-lamps and other power intensive machinery that heating is largely unnecessary.

[@3800S1]

Idk about the heating/cooling solution but they generally require air like you mention, only thing is those caves have no air.

[@alien9279]

Cavemen, but in space! We started living in caves on earth, why not start living in space, in space caves!

[@fonsecandre]

I always think this is Neil DeGrasse Tyson talking until this dude shows up

[@LeoAngora]

The paint analogy was genius

[@Temp0raryName]

So we will need to build greenhouses in that cave. Which can supply food for the cattle dome. Then all we need to do is build the Wensleydale cheese factory, to supply the colonists!

[@AaronMcHale]

“It's Bart's moon party from outer space, with R2-D2 playing the bass!”

[@joyl7842]

1:18 here in The Netherlands we call that a Belgian highway 😋

[@GeraldBlack1]

Claim that cave!

[@marksusskind1260]

Lunar cavemen, what a concept!

[@Ohboymason]

I couldn’t wait for you to come and clear the cupboards…😭

[@JammastaJ23]

Fr question do we know enough about lunar seismic activity to be confident stuff won't collapse on people?

[@fidgetelftree9432]

I was wondering this too, so I went to read some quick stuff about Moonquakes. Apparently the moon is slowly shrinking, so that’s cool. Pretty funny to see NASA compare the moon to a raisin. Anyway, the instruments they left behind to measure seismic stuff picked up 28 shallow Moonquakes in 8 years(1969-1977) that ranged from a 2 to 5 on the Richter Scale. I couldn’t find anything in this particular article about Deep Moonquakes or the seismic activity generated by Meteorites, but those are something to consider too. Hopefully though, just in general any habitats will be reinforced enough to handle at least the less intense quakes. Maybe we’d have support structures to really buff up the natural cave walls?

[@prdoyle]

There is no tectonic activity on the moon, so most moonquakes are so mild that they would pose no problem. Stronger ones happen a few times per year, caused by tidal effects.

[@NullHand]

Those caves are lava tubes left over from the last phases of volcanism that formed the lunar maria. Most of which was over and done with 3 billion years ago. I'm pretty sure those caves are older than any Earth rock you or I have ever touched in our entire lives. I used to spelunk down here on Earth, camping underground is quite peacefull (except the snoring with reverb). Future moon cave inhabitants will consider that insanely unsafe, given that caves in our soup skin thin crust on our giant lava ball world are mere millions of years young at best.

[@solsystem1342]

Well, considering the ones that are still standing have survived for billions of years I'm sure you're safer than in a human made building.

[@hexshadowman]

Might we look forward to lunar boring operations? Make our own caves? It'd be a monster of a project developing machinery that can run reliably in lunar gravity and essentially no atmosphere, not to mention getting the thing to the moon in the first place.

[@simpleemodern]

Personally I hope the only digging we do on the moon is for fuel and specimens, as #leaveNoTrace

[@jedi4049]

@@simpleemodern it dont matter just build it jeez you tree huggers

[@a2pabmb2]

@@jedi4049 Yes, always break things before you understand how they might be most useful.

[@DneilB007]

@@jedi4049If we can hug trees on the moon, we have already won.

[@rolfs2165]

@@simpleemodern On the one hand, yeah. On the other hand, we've already left plenty traces on Earth as well as the Moon, Mars, and even Venus. So if future visitors happen to find man-made caves on the Moon, it will be all the more puzzling to them how we managed to do that, while at the same time driving ourselves to extinction.

[@cyancoyote7366]

"Roughly the length and width of an american football field" Now, tell me that in real people units please.

[@davidmccarthy6061]

Should be easy enough to land a probe in a couple of those and monitor them for a year.

[@Emcron]

so we’ll have to be space-cavemen? somehow paradoxically poetic.

[@satanofficial3902]

"The moon is always mooning you because it's very cheeky." ---Albert Einstein

[@eric212234]

Tell me if I'm wrong here but isn't waste heat always a problem? I mean wouldn't the optimal conditions for a lunar base be in perpetual shadow? Or is this episode just a hook for the less space savvy?

[@darthwader4472]

04:28 "one big cave-at"...

[@stax6092]

Cool.

[@DoctorX17]

It’s pretty wild that it happens to be in a human temperature range… as if it were planned for us… Caves on the moon not having wild temperature shifts compared to the surface just seems logical to me, since that’s how it is on Earth - I would expect caves to generally be more stable on any rocky body, provided there isn’t some mechanism moving very hot and cold air in and out

[@fluffybbpeachhun6768]

That color is a lemon type comming from my studies.

[@M00nTsuki]

Why not build on the dark side of the Moon

[@Whomobile]

Just punch a hole in the moon and live in there!

[@josholt61]

Kinda makes sense. Since geothermal vents are basically the same.

[@jesper112183]

Was there an announcement that videos are going to exclusively be 6 minutes long from now on

[@dannelson2590]

Heinlein called this in '66

[@SirBlot]

A 7 is already on the moon.

[@Mormielo]

So given all these harsh conditions, how did the whalers manage to keep their harpoons pristine?

[@39401JLB]

Well, there ain't no whales, so there was plenty of time for tall tales & equipment maintenance.

[@joewhite2610]

Did we learn nothing from The Empire Strikes Back?

[@christianheichel]

That's no moon... It's a space station

[@massimookissed1023]

Urgh, mynocks chewing on the power cables.

[@BigMobe]

Sounds depressing living in a cave but its better than getting baked or frozen. That might also be the way going forward for initial setup on other planets as well.

[@solsystem1342]

I mean, it's not like we could install windows anyways. You could get some fake naturescapes maybe?

[@davidmccarthy6061]

Caves are pretty rare so you already live in a cave called a house that is temperature controlled.

[@lorrygoth]

Well that should be easier than the trenching proposed during the cold war when they wanted to burie lunar base modules under the lunar surface.

[@tomstamford6837]

Would be an easier proposition rather than have to get a your equipment into a cave structure. Burying a base doesn't have the structural worries of a collapse to deal with. Either way you are still building structures to house inhabitants and equipment. Just a matter of what is easier, do it out in the open or inside a confined space.

[@NewMessage]

Well... no ant problem, I guess.

[@yarumillai6180]

cool

[@mooseschimming3809]

Alright, so like... who wants to volunteer to repel into the moon cave?

[@alien9279]

Jump! That moon gravity is forgiving haha

[@NullHand]

It's rappel or abseil, but I'm in. As long as someone is bringing the air and Elon is covering the ride....

[@joelsmith4394]

Interesting topic for sure, but I couldn’t help be distracted trying to suss out what the repeated pattern on his shirt was. Failed.😔

[@samwill7259]

Just watch out for Space Yogi He's smarter than the av-er-age Xeno!

[@lewisrainwater9527]

That explanation of how to take a square pixel and deduce the temperature of a known area smaller then the pixes was way to hard to follow. Don't be afraid of the math. Encourage the math. The colors literally don't matter and are only there to create contrast. The word "average" would have been highly useful here.

[@NullHand]

Problem is, they probably did the math on what including math would do to their potential view count in the era of sub-goldfish attention spans.

[@rolfs2165]

I'm also confused why the researchers went through all the hassle of making an AI model (aside from buzzwords getting more funding), I'd just have looked at the surrounding pixels and compared the one with the cave to those.

[@solsystem1342]

@@rolfs2165 model doesn't mean what you think it does. A model is just a mathematical representation of something in the real world. For example, in this case we would have to model how the temperature varries throughout the cave based on the data we collected and computer simulations of heat flow. You could naively (meaning a simple model) compare the area in the pit vs the area outside of it in the pixel to find the average temperature of the areas you could see but, that wouldn't tell you anything about how the temperature varries throughout the cave or, how stable that temperature is in any given spot.

[@kneauxremorse]

Jfk promised all of us move caves, "we choose mooncaves not because it is easy but because mooncaves are mans caves" if I recall

[@kneauxremorse]

Mooncaves*

[@mikesands4681]

Back to being cavemen

[@Devinfrbs]

Astroids would still be a big risk.

[@phoule76]

as long as you don't mind the stink of cheese

[@fluffybbpeachhun6768]

What do you have ? We measure with a big thermo Hskakdjsaj

[@TriXJester]

How would caves be formed on the moon?

[@NullHand]

Lava tubes. There are some for visit in Hawaii and Oregon.

[@all3ykat79]

You listen to Rage Against The Machine.... "All of which are American dreams".

[@generalZee]

I'm sorry, but that paint mixing metaphor may have been the most baffling attempt at an analogy since Britta Perry and Owls. Does reverse-engineering paint sound easy to you? Honestly, the mathematical calculation to determine what percent of a pixel's temperature is coming from a cave sounds WAY CLEARER than "unmixing mixed paint to find exact shades of colors."

[@Nomad77ca]

The question I have is, can we land in a cave?

[@solsystem1342]

You'd probably land near it for safety but, spelunking would be much less dangerous in 1/8g

[@39401JLB]

@@solsystem1342 but much more dangerous in vacuum. Plus, I would be cautious about big overhangs -- they can be far more delicate & fragile in low-G.

[@mikicerise6250]

@@solsystem1342 Fall 100 m on the moon and go splat at 18 m/s. Jeb might survive that, but I don't know about a human astronaut. ;)

[@osmosisjones4912]

Would it be easier to send a rover to Europa then the kyper belts

[@solsystem1342]

How would you send a rover to the kyper belt? Unless you mean one of the plutinos there's no where to land. Also, in that case, no. Drilling through kms of ice is hard.

[@fluffybbpeachhun6768]

Blonde sir hmk BlONDER sir HAMK (-._.-)...

[@Diecastclassicist]

Caves will be our future here on earth too, once we’ve rendered the surface inhospitable to life.

[@anthonyharraden4709]

Dude looks like Fat Joe’s cousin lol

[@ubermalice9589]

So damn cool. Sign me! I'm all about that moon cave life. Work on building that moon economy. Get me a moon wife. Make moon babies. Find out moon mercs kidnapped my wife and seek moon justice. Yep, moon life is exciting.

[@BookCat18]

🌚🧺

[@osmosisjones4912]

Would colonizing the asteroid belt be better then mars . Could adjust the gravity much better . Also air pressure pushing down would create more of a gravitational affect

[@IceMetalPunk]

No. The asteroid belt is far more sparse than you see in fiction; there's not a lot of places to colonize, and the distances between those places are massive.

[@prdoyle]

Air pressure cannot create a gravitational effect. There is no way to adjust gravity of an asteroid or of Mars.

[@AlbertaGeek]

Wrong on both counts. Also, that is not in any way how air pressure works. Dude, you've been trolling science channels for years and you don't seem to have learned a damn thing, you're always saying the stupidest things.

[@solsystem1342]

@@IceMetalPunk and? There's quite a ways between earth and the first mars colony. Ceres the best place if you want a big hub I guess but, that's still room for waaay more than a colony.

[@solsystem1342]

Rotating habitats would be how you would colonize them. Air pressure doesn't effect gravity though, it just affects how much pressure is on the structure.

[@mpumelelomdlalose8159]

As a person who's never played or even been in an American football field... This thing of you Americans and using that as some sort of scale has to be addressed. And while we're at it; when are you guys leaving the imperial system behind?

[@christopherholzer1513]

It's the same length as a football (world cup type) pitch.

[@photoion1]

A football field and 100yards, or roughly 100 meters and about 20 meters across

[@evanrutherfordlazyahole9079]

Worm signs lol there isn't a man on the moon just space worms.... jk good stuff let's explore every opportunity and option.

[@ChaosMatrix]

Isn't that where they found the prehistoric astronaut?

[@jedi4049]

find caves and make the base there

[@alien9279]

That's the idea!

[@irwainnornossa4605]

Stop using „'Murican football field“! That is not unit of anything. Nobody* knows how big it is, nobody even cares! Just measure area in m², like normal people.

[@1337Elisha]

NO WAY, a digital image is made of pixels? WOW amazing

[@reidflemingworldstoughestm1394]

Good luck finding a spot that isn't crawling with ants.

[@nicatnuriyev5725]

🇮🇷🚽💩🚽😡😡 ECOLOGY YES ⛰️🏔️❄️☃️ PROBLEM YES YES URMİYA GÖLÜ😢😥🌊🌊🌊GÖLÜ

[@madhatressadastra8267]

I would have said the green was made from mixing yellow and black just to be a nerd. 🤓 Try it - you'll see why...

[@ZennExile]

Sending actual humans to the moon to live is ridiculously shortsighted. Maintenance missions to repair the autonomous equipment and resupply 3D printing material stores is all the human activity we should ever see on the lunar surface.

[@IceMetalPunk]

The dream of an interplanetary human race is impossible if we never take the first steps off the Earth.

[@NullHand]

I figure it should be like the Antarctic research stations. Mostly telescope and facilities repair engineers with some visiting researchers for expedition favorable time windows (lunar dawn/dusk like Apolo).

[@solsystem1342]

Why? If we want to leave earth for anywhere the moon is the obvious choice. It's the only place in the universe you can make a call back home in real time (or call in an emergency to get advice). It's only disadvantage is moon dust other than that it's pretty much the perfect place to begin expanding into space. Not to mention it has no atmosphere, low gravity, ice, and he3 supplies. Which is like the dream option for fuel production off earth.

[@39401JLB]

@@solsystem1342 Screw He3; we don't have a practical fusion generator, much less any design for one that runs on He3. One day, decades from now, maybe it will be important -- in the meantime, the moon is brimming with iron, silicon, aluminum, titanium, oxygen, and other (especially structural) materials which will be crucial for building space infrastructure. We need to be moving into space today; right now; I don't want to delay it until the 'there might be He3' argument becomes important.

[@ZennExile]

@@solsystem1342 the problem is the exponential cost of maintaining human life away from Earth vastly overwhelms the cost of sending drones and 3D printers. Life requires Life. Earth is the only place where Life is known to exist. Without figuring out how to sustain and protect Life on Earth, we can never take Life out into the solar system with us in the abundance it will require to sustain humans. Dreams are fine, but reality has to always win.

[@osmosisjones4912]

Whee do moon caves come from if it never had running water 🌊💦

[@jedi4049]

lava makes caves too

[@IceMetalPunk]

The moon had lava until about 50 million years ago, and may still have a bit of magma under its surface. The former volcano activity formed lava tubes which occasionally collapse into caves.

[@Mumbojumbo20]

Great science… bad shirt

[@lionroar26]

So this is basically telling us humans have never been to the moon

[@solsystem1342]

Did you know. The moon is actually quite large so we have not in fact explored the entire surface with a few dozen people spending a few hours out and about each. Careful you don't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions there.

[@RS49059]

Wait wait wait sir... I thought caves were made by erosion.... Usually water erosion.... Wtf are caves doing on the moon?

[@IceMetalPunk]

The moon had lava until about 50 million years ago, and may still have a bit of magma under its surface. The former volcano activity formed lava tubes which occasionally collapse into caves.

[@RS49059]

@@IceMetalPunk THANK YOU!!!! I'm an idiot 🤦😅

[@haeuptlingaberja4927]

I would be a lot more excited about such endeavors if we could devote even 1% of our knowledge, technology and wealth to keeping the Earth--the only space ship that the vast majority of us and all other species will ever know--alive.

[@39401JLB]

Going to -- and living in -- space will directly help everyone on Earth. The technologies derived from the requirements to live in space will make living on Earth cleaner -- space-based solar power, nearly 100% effective recycling, pollution-free processes, prospecting/refining materials from dead rocks in space instead of leaving vast scars on the Earth, growing our food in our space habitats....