The moon is a God gifted permanent satellite to us. So far, the piece of of real estate was not utilized at all. Over all these years of our civilization, we became sophisticated enough to have a second look at moon.
International Space Station is about 350 kms above earth, rotating at a speed of 27.744 km/h. It takes about 92 minutes to orbit the earth and it does so 15.7 times a day. Compare these stats with that of moon. The average distance of moon is 384400 kms from Earth. It orbits the earth in 27.32 days. It has a thin atmosphere of Ar, He, Na, K, He and Rn with pressure ranging from 10 to the power minus 7 to 10 pascal. Landing a rocket ship would need at least ten times the effort needed to reach ISS. But building a base on moon definitely has some advantages over ISS. First of all, it will be on solid ground. Unlike ISS, which is purely experimentation, moon exploration can be financially rewarding if we can start a rear earth mining activity.
Because of the thin atmospher of moon, astronomical observatories on it will also have an advantage over those on earth. Because of its low escape velocity, moon can act as stepping stone for future space probes.
Developing greenhouse agriculture on the surface of moon can have multifaceted benefit to us. It can be a source of food for astronauts. Due to an abundance of sunlight, it can be a source of oxygen. The carbon dioxide the astronauts breath out can be used by plants to produce food for itself and oxygen as byproduct using sunlight. If you're ambitious and over imaginative , you may think agricultural on moon as a solution of evergrowing shortage of food for the evergrowing population on earth. If you wantt to extend your imagination, how about letting loose a couple of rabbits in our domed garden on moon and see how mammals reproduce when their weight is one sixth of what it is on earth. Let's find out how their offspring evolve in lunar gravity. All these experiments will help future colonization on other planets if need arises.
It is about time that we positively conclude that we are alone in the solar system. If that's the case, why not come up some system of co-operation amongst nations in space exploration and colonization. Let the United Nation be involved. We shouldn't shun the biggest and most successful inter governmental organization from space exploration, which we had been doing for so long. Let's equip it better to deal with both conflict and co-operation in outer space. Let it play the role of Federation of Star Trek. Let it lay the foundation of International Lunar Station. And once we have our astronauts at home on moon, we can always make special request to Elon Musk to drop some holiday turkey for them. Or, maybe ,ask Chinese or Indians to drop off a astronaut or two once in a while.
