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Show Family Weekly I Sorcmhet foreseeing great technological benefits as well as y, i960 space explorations, tells far-reachi- ng Must Colonize the Moon By ISAAC AS1MOV and "life and Energy" Author of 'Twentieth Century Dttcovery" monumental. The moon's airless world be an astronomer's dream. Here on earth, the skies are obscured by clouds and city lights. On the moon, however, everything would be sharp and clear. What's more, the moon rotates at a rate only 130 that of the earth, so that the objects in its sky move that much more slowly and can be watched and studied without interruption for that much longer. Larger radio telescopes could be built, too, and located on the side of the moon that forever faces away from earth. Without interference from earth's increasing output of radio interference, it could receive the dim crackling of radio waves from distant galaxies. The moon's crust, attentively studied, can be a vast library of knowledge for us, for it is possible that some 4 billion years ago, earth and moon formed out of the same cloud of dust and gas. The earth's surface has, however, vastly changed since those early days. The wind and the sea have worn it down and overlaid it with new sediment. The action of living things has changed it chemically. Most of what we can reach of the earth's crust is not old at all, and what is old is so changed we can find little in it. It is all we can do to trace earth's past back about half a billion years, only a ninth of its total age. The surface rocks brought back by the Apollo 11 astronauts seem, however, to be 4 billion years old. The moon's crust, in the absence of air and vater, is comparatively unchanged from the day of creation on. That crust will tell us all the history of our satellite, and all the early history of the earth as well, perhaps. For instance, the simple chemicals in earth's air and water were built up and made more complicated by the energy of sunlight, billions of years ago. Eventually, they became complicated enough to possess the spark of life. Life spread over all of earth and obscured its very early chemical history. On the moon, however, the simple chemicals are present in smaller quantities, and the process was slower. The growth in complexity has apparently stopped far short of life. The moon's crust may have preserved would that early chemical evolution, therefore, and will then tell us things we cannot discover on earth. It may even help us understand some of the fundamental properties of life beyond the point where our earthbound research can lead us. Astronomy and geology may seem to the average earth-mabut one can argue that all knowledge is useful To lift the curtain of darkness in any corner of the realm of the mind is to brighten the light everywhere. However, for those who lack faith in this view, there remains the strong possibility that the colonization of the moon will bring immediate material benefits. Consider that the moon is covered with a vacuum. There are many processes that require a vacuum. There are electronic devices that must be evacuated if they are to work. There are techniques of plating, welding, purification, distillation, that require vacuum or are benefited by it. On earth, the necessary vacuum can be formed but only with an effort, at great expense, and over limited volumes for limited periods. On the moon, the vacuum is there, an infinite quantity of it for all eternity. ivory-toweri- sh n, It may be that the moon cavern will become a highly specialized factory, making and shipping to earth unusual devices and rare chemicals that could be produced only with difficulty, if at all. on the earth. Nor is the vacuum the only unusual aspect of the moon's environment night, the During the long surface temperature on the moon drops as low as 245F. That is much closer to absolute zero ( 459F.) than the temperatures available on earth. Near absolute zero, certain types of miniaturized computers can be made to work with great efficiency; very powerful magnets can be constructed, which consume almost no po.er; and so on. Such devices can help our moon colonists supply them to earth. One thing we cannot expect of the moon colony: it can't possibly help relieve earth's overpopulation problem. At the present moment, earth's population is increasing at something like 200,000 per day, and no one expects we can ever transfer that many people there. Even if we could, the moon's cavern could not be expanded quickly enough to support it, and if that could somehow be done, then the 354-ho- - ur . "V Jfi I 1 m moon would be as crowded as we in a few decades, and we'd be back where we started. No. earth's overpopulation is a problem that must be solved right here on earth. Nevertheless, the moon colony can offer us the benefit of an example. It would be & small world that would have learned how to conserve its limited resources efficiently and how to keep down pollution. (It would have to have learned how or it wouldn't survive a week.) We, on the other hand, have lived for so many thousands of years on a planet that seemed enormous without limit, that we never bothered to learn how to preserve it. Most important of all, however, is the fact that the moon colonists will be used to a life unlike anything on earth, and this may be crucial in space exploration. It is hard, after all, for earthmen to get into a spaceship and look forward to a journey of months or years. The moon colonists, on the other hand, will be born, live, and die on the moon. They will be accustomed all their life to low gravity, and to surroundings that are artificial, and engineered. They will accept as normal the absence of free sunlight, open air, rain, and blue sky. To a moon colonist, a spaceship would not seem so different. He would already have been living in a spaceship with the moon's crust as its walls. He would be giving up very little to move into a metal spaceship heading for Mars. It is the moon colonists, then, not we earthlings, that could face the long voyage to Mars and beyond. Yes, human beings can reach Mars easily (and not just as a demonstration) and can even reach worlds as warm and as earth, if we go about it pleasant the right way if we colonize the moon first. one-sh- ot life-beari- Til Here is a concept of moon living: booster tanks are arranged in a cluster, connecting living quarters, medical center, leisure areas, and work center. Giant Space Map Only $1 Family Weekly reader who want to follow more closely today's exciting space adventures, are urged to send for big H'xSS" Universal Map of Outer Space in full colors! Shows planets, their sizes, distances from sun, dramatic concept of their surfaces, and much more! Mail $1 to "SPACE MAP" 5i913, Dept. 1003, iSno S'.W. 135th St., Miami, Fla. Family Weekly, November 9, 1969 7 |