Returning Back to the Moon

I took a break from what I've been doing to watch Isaac Arthur's YouTube video "Return to the Moon". I saw a post @mvl2304 made using an animated GIF by @thepeakstudio that I really like

Image Source: @thepeakstudio

Just so we're clear the 1969 moon landing wasn't faked. If you want to comment that you believe we never went to the moon that's fine. I'll add another YouTube video at the end of this post which debunks the "Apollo 11 was a hoax" conspiracy so you'll know what else to avoid.

One thing I hadn't ever thought about but makes perfect sense is when the video points out that it will likely be nuclear power providing most of the energy for lunar colonies. Solar panel factories aren't solar powered. Solar energy may directly be a part of the process of extracting metals from lunar rocks and regolith but radioisotope thermoelectric generators have more energy density. The video states that Plutonium-238 and Strontium-90 both produce around 500 watts per kilogram. Nanotechnology could probably allow solar panels to eventually have far better energy density but there's also the issue of not being able to cover and protect the solar panels from small meteors around the size of a grain of rice.

Another thing I hadn't really thought about until watching this video was the amount of robotics that would be involved. Robots can explore craters and be part of the process of constructing liveable habitats. Robots can also explore the lava tubes which go far beneath the lunar surface.