Category Archives: Moon Colonization

DISCLAIMER: This web site is not a policy statement. It is intended to be an accessible introduction to the ideas developed in the Stanford/NASA Ames space settlement studies of the 1970s to support the annual NASA Ames Student Space Settlement Design Contest. You. Or at least people a lot like you. Space settlements will be a place for ordinary people.

Presently, with few exceptions, only highly trained and carefully selected astronauts go to space. Space settlement needs inexpensive, safe launch systems to deliver thousands, perhaps millions, of people into orbit. If this seems unrealistic, note that a hundred and fifty years ago nobody had ever flown in an airplane, but today nearly 500 million people fly each year.

Some special groups might find space settlement particularly attractive: The handicapped could keep a settlement at zero-g to make wheelchairs and walkers unnecessary. Penal colonies might be created in orbit as they should be fairly escape proof. People who wish to experiment with very different social and political forms could get away from restrictive social norms.

Although some colonies may follow this model, it's reasonable to expect that the vast majority of space colonists will be ordinary people. Indeed, eventually most people in space settlements will be born there, and some day they may vastly exceed Earth's population. Based on the materials available, the human population in orbit could one day exceed ten trillion living in millions of space colonies with a combined living space hundreds of times the surface of the Earth.

For an alternate view, see Robert Zubrin's powerful case for Mars exploration and colonization. Mars' biggest advantage is that all the materials necessary for life may be found on Mars. While materials for orbital colonies must be imported from the Moon or Near Earth Objects (NEO's -- asteroids and comets), there are many advantages to orbital colonies. Advantages include:

By contrast, orbital colonies can rotate to provide any g level desired, although it's not true gravity. Spinning the colony creates a force called pseudo-gravity, that feels a lot like gravity. Pseudo-gravity is much like what you feel when a car takes a sharp turn at high speed. Your body is pressed up against the door. Simillarly, as an orbital space colony turns, the inside of the colony pushes on the inhabitants forcing them to go around. The amount of this force can be controlled and for reasonable colony sizes and rotation rates the force can be about 1g. For example, a colony with an 895 meter (a bit less than 1000 yards) radius rotating at one rpm (rotations per minute) provides 1g at the hull. Children raised on orbital colonies should have no trouble visiting Earth for extended periods.

Mars and the Moon have one big advantage over most orbits: there's plenty of materials. However, this advantage is eliminated by simply building orbital settlements next to asteroids. It may even be easier to mine asteroids for materials than the Mars or the Moon as there is much less gravity. Fortunately, there are tens of thousands of suitable asteroids in orbits near that of Earth alone, and far more in the asteroid belt. Early settlements can be expected to orbit the Earth.

Later settlements can spread out across the solar system, taking advantage of the water in Jupiter's moons or exploiting the easily available materials of the asteroid belt. Eventually the solar system will become too crowded, and some settlements will head for nearby stars.

Interstellar travel seems impractical due to long travel times. But what if you lived in space settlements for fifty generations? Do you really care if your settlement is near our Sun or in transit to Alpha Centuri? So what if the trip takes a few generations? If energy and make up materials for the trip can be stored, a stable population can migrate to nearby stars. At the new star, local materials and energy can be used to build new settlements and resume population growth.

With great difficulty. Fortunately, although building space colonies will be very difficult, it's not impossible. Building cities in space will require materials, energy, transportation, communications, life support, and radiation protection.

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Space Colonization Basics

Moon colonization. The very idea whips up images of interconnected biodomes, hovercrafts cruising the pockmarked surface, and ships darting to Earth and back again. The moon is the only planetary object whose features can be seen without the aid of a telescope. It's also the closest object to our planet large enough for humans to inhabit. When considering long-term space exploration and living, building a moon colony seems like the next logical step. We have the technology to get there and the innovative thinking to be successful. But what are the benefits of a moon colony? Do the risks outweigh the gains? How is such an expensive undertaking feasible in uncertain economic climates? Will we build on the moon in the next decade, or will the dream of a moon colony continue to hang on the horizon, just out of reach?

Let's take a look at some of the pros -- and cons -- of colonizing the moon.

Humans have been fascinated with the moon for millennia. From the discoveries of Aristotle and Galileo to modern science explorations, the moon has held profound mysteries and endless possibilities. In recent decades, the desire to tackle this new frontier, and to travel through the galaxy in search of sentient life, has prompted scientists and entrepreneurs alike to tackle head-on what many believe to be the first step in interstellar travel: a colony on the moon.

Many feel a moon outpost -- not a full-fledged colony -- will be built within the next 10 years. Human spirit alone, however, can't meet the considerable barriers that stand in the way. The costs associated with building a colony are prohibitive, but the private sector may be able to pay for what governments can't afford. Safety is a paramount concern, and state-of-the-art technologies -- including nanostructures -- are creating viable solutions for life in space. Although public attitude and the willingness to support expensive space programs waxes and wanes, the human desire to explore is constant.

In 1835, John Herschel wrote a series of six articles claiming the discovery of life on the moon. It later became known as the Great Moon Hoax [source: Gizmodo].

That a moon colony would need to be self-sufficient is perhaps stating the obvious. When you're 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away from Earth, you would want to have the upper hand when it comes to necessities like food and water.

Dehydrated food is one option. Although it's not the freshest, it's compact, comes in minimal packaging and stores for years. But is it a realistic expectation that colonists would be satisfied with such fare for months on end? If the taste factor alone isn't enough of a turnoff, limited choices may make it less than ideal. Hydroponic farming] is a smart alternative to freeze-dried space food. NASA has been experimenting with it for more than 20 years as a way to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for astronauts. It's efficient -- a must considering the limited supply of water -- and food would be fresh. Transportation costs would disappear. And there's another perk: Farming in space can also supplement another precious resource: oxygen.

When we believed that the moon was just a dusty mass, the lack of water was a huge argument against colonization. The weight alone would make transporting water from Earth prohibitively expensive. However, scientists have recently discovered approximately one billion gallons (3.8 billion liters) of water ice in one moon crater [source: Potter]. Conceivably, colonies built near ice deposits would have a natural supply of water. There would have to be purifying systems for removing toxins like mercury, as well as systems for reclaiming gray water. When melted and broken down into its components, water ice could also be used as fuel for rockets.

Astronauts, leave the shakers at home: In space, salt and pepper come in liquid form only.

Why buy an around-the-world ticket when a few million dollars will take you to the moon? Entrepreneurs are banking on space as the next wave in travel. With the expectation that it will amount to billions of dollars in revenue, companies like Virgin, with its prototype space plane Virgin Galactic, are leading the way in private space travel. Space Adventures is developing what it hopes will be the first private lunar expedition. They anticipate ferrying thousands of travelers to the moon and eventually beyond. Hotel chains, such as Hilton Hotels, are looking into the feasibility of providing travelers with accommodations on the moon that feature all the comforts of home.

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10 Pros (and Cons) of Colonizing the Moon : Discovery Channel

The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Science fiction writers and advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth.

Permanent human habitation on a planetary body other than the Earth is one of science fiction's central themes. As technology has advanced, and concerns about the future of humanity on Earth have increased, the argument that space colonization is an achievable and worthwhile goal has gained momentum. Because of its proximity to Earth, the Moon has been seen as a prime candidate for the location of humanity's first permanently occupied extraterrestrial base.

Should attempts at colonization go ahead, economic concerns are likely to lead to settlements being created near mines and processing centers, or near the poles where a continuous source of solar energy can be harnessed. While it would be relatively easy to resupply a lunar base from Earth, in comparison to a Martian base, the Moon is likely to play a large role in the development of long-duration closed-loop life support systems. Duplicating the ecology of Earth so that wastes can be recycled is essential to any long term effort of space exploration. The wealth of knowledge gained by extracting and refining resources on the Moon would positively affect efforts to build colonies elsewhere in the Solar System.

Putting aside the general questions of whether a human colony beyond the Earth is feasible or scientifically desirable in light of cost-efficiency, proponents of space colonization point out that the Moon offers both advantages and disadvantages as a site for such a colony.

Placing a colony on a natural body would provide an ample source of material for construction and other uses, including shielding from radiation. The energy required to send objects from the Moon to space is much less than from Earth to space. This could allow the Moon to serve as a construction site or fueling station for spacecraft. Some proposals include using electric acceleration devices (mass drivers) to propel objects off the Moon without building rockets. Others have proposed momentum exchange tethers. Furthermore, the Moon does have some gravity, which, experience to date indicates, may be vital for fetal development and long-term human health. Whether the Moon's gravity (roughly one sixth of Earth's) is adequate for this purpose, however, is uncertain.

In addition, the Moon is the closest large body in the solar system to Earth. While some Earth-crosser asteroids occasionally pass closer, the Moon's distance is consistently within a small range close to 384,400 km. This proximity has several benefits:

There are several disadvantages to the Moon as a colony site:

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Colonization of the Moon - Space Colonization Wiki

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Newswise SOUTH HADLEY, MASS. Humans colonizing the Moon and landing spaceships on Mars: Mount Holyoke College professor M. Darby Dyar is one of the scientists who will help NASA move these ideas from the realm of science fiction to science fact.

Dyar, MHCs Kennedy-Schelkunoff Professor of Astronomy, was recently named to three of nine scientific teams that will help NASA shape the future of human space exploration.

Each month for the next five years, scientists will meet in person or through videoconferences in virtual research institutes to share expertise and focus their research on important issues in planetary science. The specifics of their work are very specific, but the goals are literally galactic in scope.

I think that, in my lifetime, we will go to other planets and establish bases there, Dyar says. Colonization of the Moon is the most likely.

NASA is funding scientists in its Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institutes (SSERVI) in a suitably astronomical way: $12 million annually for five years. Dyars work will bring nearly $1 million of that total to Mount Holyoke, and involve students in three distinct research projects.

Dyar will co-lead a team working to get maximum scientific benefit from samples collected from other worlds and returned to Earth via space flights. Future missions might bring back only minute amounts of rock samples, says Dyar, so her expertise in analyzing extremely small samples is needed to determine how to distribute and use the limited amount of material available. This project is based at Stony Brook University and also involves MHC lab instructor Tom Burbine, an internationally recognized asteroid expert.

A second SSERVI project focuses on how to determine, from an orbiting spacecraft, what minerals are on a planets surface. For this, co-primary investigator Dyar will work with Brown University graduate students and faculty. Because the data processing apparatus theyll use at MHC is extremely complicated, our undergraduates will train the graduate students in using the equipment.

Our students do this kind of thing all the time, she says.

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Mount Holyoke's Darby Dyar Heads for Outer Space--Virtually

EDMONTON -- In her Grade 8 yearbook, Christy Foley wrote that she wanted to be among the first humans to colonize the moon.

She never got the chance. Instead, she might go to Mars.

Im totally willing to miss the moon to go to Mars, the 32-year-old Edmontonian said Saturday. My friends are already calling me a Martian. I almost get giddy thinking about it.

Foley recently learned she is one of 1,028 people worldwide under consideration for the Mars One project, a non-profit, Dutch-based endeavour to establish a human colony on the red planet by 2024. Foley was hopeful when she first applied, but kept her expectations low.

At the end of December, she received an email telling her shed survived a massive cut of more than 200,000 hopeful, potential astronauts. My eyes flew open and I shrieked.

The excited Foley, one of 75 Canadians still in the running, hasnt slept much in the past week, but still has a long way to go. After the success of her application package, she must now undergo medical tests, psychological interviews and eventually physical challenges if she is to make the final cut. Just 24 people will be chosen. For Foley, a strategic planner for Environment and Sustainable Resources Development, the project is an opportunity to learn how to survive and thrive in a foreign environment.

It is also a chance for her childhood dreams to come true. Foley grew up watching the female crew members in Star Trek: The Next Generation television episodes and fondly remembers meeting Roberta Bondar, Canadas first female astronaut. Stories of her time in the Girl Guides of Canada and Pathfinders ended up in her application essay.

Her husband, a lawyer, also applied, but didnt make the cut. His rejection letter contained a story about a NASA astronaut who was rejected 15 times before he was accepted to the space agency.

The journey involves a one-way trip. Thats something Foley is prepared to accept.

Everyone dies on Earth, she said. Its boring. I would get to die on Mars. Wed probably live a lot longer on Mars than Earth, though. Its a much healthier environment and there are no cars to run over you.

Originally posted here:
Edmonton woman ‘giddy’ about possible one-way trip to Mars

EDMONTON -- In her Grade 8 yearbook, Christy Foley wrote that she wanted to be among the first humans to colonize the moon.

She never got the chance. Instead, she might go to Mars.

Im totally willing to miss the moon to go to Mars, the 32-year-old Edmontonian said Saturday. My friends are already calling me a Martian. I almost get giddy thinking about it.

Foley recently learned she is one of 1,028 people worldwide under consideration for the Mars One project, a non-profit, Dutch-based endeavour to establish a human colony on the red planet by 2024. Foley was hopeful when she first applied, but kept her expectations low.

At the end of December, she received an email telling her shed survived a massive cut of more than 200,000 hopeful, potential astronauts. My eyes flew open and I shrieked.

The excited Foley, one of 75 Canadians still in the running, hasnt slept much in the past week, but still has a long way to go. After the success of her application package, she must now undergo medical tests, psychological interviews and eventually physical challenges if she is to make the final cut. Just 24 people will be chosen. For Foley, a strategic planner for Environment and Sustainable Resources Development, the project is an opportunity to learn how to survive and thrive in a foreign environment.

It is also a chance for her childhood dreams to come true. Foley grew up watching the female crew members in Star Trek: The Next Generation television episodes and fondly remembers meeting Roberta Bondar, Canadas first female astronaut. Stories of her time in the Girl Guides of Canada and Pathfinders ended up in her application essay.

Her husband, a lawyer, also applied, but didnt make the cut. His rejection letter contained a story about a NASA astronaut who was rejected 15 times before he was accepted to the space agency.

The journey involves a one-way trip. Thats something Foley is prepared to accept.

Everyone dies on Earth, she said. Its boring. I would get to die on Mars. Wed probably live a lot longer on Mars than Earth, though. Its a much healthier environment and there are no cars to run over you.

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Canadian woman ‘giddy’ about possible one-way trip to Mars

Even many of its admirers have brought up the G word when discussing David O. Russells American Hustle. That word, of course, is Goodfellas, the 1990 Martin Scorsese classic to which Russells film with its multiple narrators, its probing long takes, and its lively use of pop music clearly owes a stylistic debt. To some, Hustle pays homage to the Scorsese film; to others, its a rip-off of sorts. At any rate, the comparison is an interesting one, since Scorsese himself has his own very Goodfellas-y film, The Wolf of Wall Street, out in theaters now, too. And while Scorsese cannot really be said to rip himself off, his new film has also drawn comparisons to his 23-year-old masterpiece. (Such a fate also befell 1995s Casino, which some of us now think might actually be an even better film than Goodfellas.)

But all this brings up some good questions: Whats the secret to a good homage? When does homage veer into rip-off territory? Why do some films get away with this sort of thing while other films dont? And how does American Hustle fit into this dynamic?

Some homages are very simple: They briefly nod at a familiar element to pay their respects to a previous film or filmmaker, and move along on their merry, and very different, way. Think of Uma Thurmans Anna Karina wig in Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction, or Wong Kar-wais borrowings from the score for Once Upon a Time in America in his martial arts epic The Grandmaster. This is probably the simplest, and most effective, form of homage.

But some films go beyond that with their referentiality, seeming to borrow their whole stylistic ethos from another film. Here, a film that feels too much like another in the same genre, or that takes place in a similar setting, can have a harder time of it. For example, when I first saw Moon, I was uncomfortable about the weird similarities between Duncan Joness film and Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ive since come to like Moon, but at the time, it seemed like Jones was using the work of a more original filmmaker as a crutch on which to stand. And Paul Thomas Andersons There Will Be Blood may borrow even more heavily from 2001; but because its not about space travel or moon colonization, its referentiality is less distracting.

Actually, P.T. Anderson and Kubrick share a couple of similarities in this regard. When Anderson first unleashed Boogie Nights, many criticized that film for being just an assemblage of references to Goodfellas, certainly, but also to the work of Robert Altman, Jonathan Demme, and others. And back in the day, Jean-Luc Godard (let that sink in for a moment) dinged Kubrick for being basically just a diligent reference artist enamored of Max Ophuls and John Huston. This is the film of a good pupil, no more, he wrote of Kubricks classic noir thriller The Killing. Neither Anderson nor Kubrick would have denied the influences, but today, you dont hear many such complaints about either Boogie Nights or The Killing (or Kubricks Paths of Glory, which is even more Ophulsian). Thats because both Anderson and Kubrick proved themselves to be filmmakers of singular vision. You watch The Killing and Paths of Glory today, and you dont so much see Ophuls as you see Kubrick you see his stylistic and thematic hallmarks.

People like to quote T.S. Eliot and say, Good poets borrow, great poets steal. Actually, the exact quote is a bit different, and more nuanced. Eliot said: Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. In other words, when Eliot uses the word steal, hes not just talking about taking, but also about making something your own, building on what youve taken, and creating something new out of it.

There are numerous terrific examples of this. Many of the great American films of the seventies owed a huge debt, for example, to John Fords The Searchers. But whether it was Paul Schraders Hard Core or Martin Scorseses Taxi Driver (written, not coincidentally, by Schrader), these films all used the template of The Searchers to explore their own eras. Brian De Palma was, for many years, slagged by many critics for being a Hitchcock rip-off artist until, gradually, it became clear in films like Dressed to Kill and Body Double that he was taking the Hitchockian stylistic and thematic template to illogical, psychotic extremes. More recently, I cant help but think of Steven Spielbergs War Horse, which takes from both The Searchers and another iconic Ford film, The Quiet Man, to create a vision of an Old World that is about to be destroyed by the mechanized horror of World War I.

And heres where American Hustle comes in. Yes, in some ways, the film is very reminiscent of Goodfellas. In his review, our own David Edelstein describes the stylistic echoes well: [Russell] out-Scorseses Scorsese: whip pans, whooshes, slo-mo, tacky (but great) seventies chart toppers, actors wound up and let loose.

But thematically, Hustle does something very different. True to Eliots dictum, it creates something new out of familiar elements. Lets take the dual voice-over, for example. In Scorseses film, both Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) are tour guides of a sort, and they jointly narrate the film. When Karen first butts in on Henrys voice-over, the film is charged by the hilarity and boldness of her intrusion. It sets us up for some of the things she does later in the film. But it also creates a kind of solidarity between the two: Henry and Karen see different parts of the mob experience, and the fact that theyre both narrating allows Scorsese to give us a more fully formed vision of this world. (We can witness scenes where Henry isnt present but Karen is, for example.)

Scorseses characters are creatures of their environment; Russells characters rarely fit into their environment. The ping-ponging narration in the early scenes of Hustle between Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) reveals their vulnerabilities as well as the effect theyre having on each other: He had this air about him, and he had this confidence that drew me to him, Sydney tells us, even though weve seen that Irv is anything but comfortable in his own skin. He was who he was. He didnt care. Remember, shes saying this about a man who spends obscene amounts of time perfecting his comb-over. Irv observes something similar about Sydney, even though she tells us that her dream, more than anything, was to become anything else other than who I was. Which she does, when she becomes the faux-British aristocrat Lady Edith Greensley. Both Irv and Syd are anxious figures, constantly trying to be someone else; and yet, to each other, at least at first, they seem like masters of their domain.

Originally posted here:
American Hustle and the Art of the Homage

Moon colonization is one of those ideas that comes along now and again, usually when an American president is trying to demonstrate that they have the vision thing. When President Bush suggested it in 2004 it was at a speech to staff at NASA and was framed as part of a wider strategy of space exploration[i] with the moon functioning as a launch pad for explorations further into space. To be precise he said Living and working there for increasingly extended periods of time[ii]

It seems fairly unlikely that Sci-Fi ideas of fully-fledged cities are likely any time soon but talk of a permanent scientific base - similar to the international space station or the Rothera Research Station in Antarctica.

Proponents of moon colonization have various theories about the potential benefits, ranging from solid front runner of scientific research, through the more speculative launch pad and mining, and ending up in the frankly fanciful hotel and Amusement park or casino complex. At least those proponents who feel the need for a reason for colonization tend to use these arguments to demonstrate the validity of the case. For others its the more instinctive Because its there or Because its next and certainly, a review of literature shows that it is an idea which has always spoken powerfully to the human instinct to explore.

Opponents tend to speak with a rather more unified, if prosaic, voice and point out that it would be hugely expensive and there is no particular need to do it.

There is then a slightly separate argument that takes place within and around the environmental movement that says colonizing the moon would be good preparation for living on other planets once weve trashed this one, to which the reply of environmentalists tends to be along the lines of Oh, so you can trash that one as well?

Whatever the motivation to go or not nobody disputes that doing so would be extremely expensive and scientifically challenging. There are huge issues to be overcome just in terms of keeping the astronauts alive. There is also some dispute as to whether we could learn anything from a manned base that could not be done remotely.

There are other challenges in terms of the logistics of the operation and these mean that much of the discussion has taken place around whether the idea is worthwhile in principle rather than in practice. When Bush made the speech it was distinctly redolent of Kennedys By the end of the decade remark about putting a man on the moon in the first place. As much a statement of American supremacy and financial and organizational muscle as anything to do with the science it would promote or reveal. Whatever the reason the financial woes that came later apparently put an end to the idea and little has been heard about it since. Indeed Obama cancelled the first stage of the program in 2010 as being too expensive, behind schedule and lacking innovation.[iii]

[i] http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html 14 January 2004

[ii] President Bush Offers New Vision for NASA, NASA, 14 January 2004

[iii] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8489097.stm

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This House would colonize the moon | idebate.org

Welcome to our Lunar Colony Island Cheats walkthrough. Below youll find a set of screenshots, sneak peeks, walkthroughs and more all about how to beat Poptropica Lunar Colony Island.

Lunar Colony island was announced on July 13, 2012 by Shark Boy and is set to release in its Early Access period on August 16, 2012 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time. Lunar Colony will be released to non-members on September 6, 2012.

An abandoned space station. A missing astronaut. A signal from beyond the stars. Blast off for a Poptropica adventure like no other! Get ready to explore the secrets of the lunar surface, and uncover a mystery as old as the cosmos

Youve returned to earth just in time to receive a new transmission. Can you crack the code and translate the alien message?

Members get an additional Lunar Colony gear pack, which includes Zaggy Moondust costume, Alien Archaeology power, and Moon Rock item.The Zaggy Moondust costume is ONLY available during Early Access!

Youve landed in Poptropica and I bet youre thinking Hey, waittaminute, this isnt a Lunar Colony!, right? Well get there in a second. Most of Lunar Colony Island is spent on the moon, but we have to get there first.

Run to your right and enter the mission control in the PASE building and go inside. Once youre in there, speak to both of the controllers and their director will come in and ask why no one has been taking care of the astronaut who looks a bit sick. He will yell at you and you need to click on him and select the last option I and he will send you on a mission to help out the astronaut.

Exit Mission Control and run to your left, back to where the older man was on the stage. Youll notice that he left behind a bottle. Pick up the bottle of Ginger Ale and then head to your right, past Mission Control, to the Launch Area. Stand in the middle of the elevator scaffolding and press the elevator button to have it come down. Jump up onto the elevator and then press the button again to zoom to the top. Be careful not to move or jump, as it may force you off of the elevator platform.

Once you have made it to the top, run to your right and enter the rocket to help out the astronaut. Once youre inside the rocket, open up your inventory, use the Ginger Ale and youll make him feel better. Hell hand you his helmet and ask you to hold it and then close the door behind him. HEY, we didnt sign up for this!! Nevertheless, we are off to space! Click the headset on the right of the rocket to put it on.

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Poptropica Cheats for Lunar Colony Island

This article is about the Moon as the subject of and inspiration for creative works. For the Moon in mythology and religion, see Moon (mythology).

The Moon has been the subject of many works of art and literature and the inspiration for countless others. It is a motif in the visual arts, the performing arts, poetry, prose and music.

Lucian's Icaromenippus and True History, written in the 2nd century AD, deal with imaginary voyages to the moon such as on a fountain after going past the Pillars of Hercules. The theme did not become popular until the 17th century, however, when the invention of the telescope hastened the popular acceptance of the concept of "a world in the Moon", that is, that the Moon was an inhabitable planet, which might be reached via some sort of arial carriage. The concept of another world, close to our own and capable of looking down at it from a distance, provided ample scope for satirical comments on the manners of the Earthly world. Among the early stories dealing with this concept are:

The first flight to the Moon was a popular topic of science fiction before the actual landing in 1969.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote extensively, prolifically, and inter-connectedly about first voyages and colonization of the Moon, which he most often called Luna.[3] He also was involved with the films Destination Moon and Project Moonbase.

The Moon is sometimes imagined as having, now or in the distant past, indigenous life and civilization.

Human settlements on the Moon are found in many science fiction novels, short stories and films. Not all have the Moon colony itself as central to the plot.

Originally posted here:
Moon in fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia