The total mass of Apollo samples is several hundred kilograms; the total for all the lunar meteorites found in 25 years of searching is 33Kg. So Von Braun fond more rocks surreptitiously in a week’s vacation than many people searching earnestly and openly for 25 years have found? (The Antarctic searches have found over 100,000 meteorites, but only a tiny percentage are lunar, and a similar tiny percentage are martian.)

The Apollo sample rocks have unique chemical composition and physical structure. The only similar rocks ever found are the lunar meteorites. They are different from all other meteorites, all Earth rocks, Martian rocks, the Venusian surface, Titan, Eros (and all other asteroids ever examined close up) and anything else. But the Apollo rocks and the lunar meteorites clearly came from the same place, and that place matches the geological composition of the Moon as determined by the Surveyor landers and the Clementine and Lunar Prospector orbiters. (And nothing from SELENE or Chang’e-1 has cast any doubt on this, AFAIK.) And it all makes sense in light of theories of the Moon’s (and Earth’s) formation developed *after* the Apollo landings, but not at all what they were expecting *before* the Apollo landings. What, did Von Braun just make an extremely lucky guess?

I got most of the lunar meteorite information from http://www.meteorites.wustl.edu/lunar/moon_meteorites.htm

I don’t have any sources on terraforming, it’s just my speculation, and something that has featured in various forms in science fiction, which, while not currently feasible, can give ideas of where we might pursue the science. Just look at Arthur C. Clarke’s works.

IMHO, colonies would likely be rather unpleasant places to live for years at a time: enclosed, cold industrial decor, few live plants or fauna except in special greenhouses or zoos, if even that. However, if the technology could be developed to, say, give a planet a more hospitable atmosphere (something that would probably take decades if not centuries to do), then colonies would not need to be enclosed. The way I figure it, pursuit of such technologies would probably start with trying to figure out how to repair the damage done to the Earth’s atmosphere and climate, once we get past how to keep the damage from progressing.

Just speculation, but ambitions like these, especially if they are started early, can lead to grand developments in the future. Most definitely not in my lifetime, nor in the next generation or two, but definitely somewhere down the road.

Don’t we need some other baskets, though? ;^}

Todd…

I’m genuinely interested in this concept. Should I just google it or do have any links that would get me going? Seriously. Thanks.

In the short term, yeah, it won’t be a very welcoming experience. But, if we can advance terraforming technology to make uninhabitable places not only habitable but pleasant… Stepping stones, my friend. Stepping stones.

Is living in an inhospitable environment within a manmade “colony” devoid of all the things we evolved an appreciation and in fact a need for really what “surviving” as a species looks like?

Pass!