No Stupid Questions

It takes a few eggs out of our current basket and puts it into other nearby baskets, so as to avoid complete species failure if our original basket falls or gets dropped.

Not the most ideal solution, as we should really step out of our stellar neighbourhood to achieve lasting civilizational redundancy, but it’s far better than not taking any eggs out of the current basket at all.

Plus, incremental efforts in achieving civilizational redundancy always have better results than great leaps, both in terms of consistency as well as resiliency. Figuring things out a bit at a time is nearly always more effective than trying to solve everything all at once.

lot of big 'ifs' involved: re: the moon specifically -

if we can find water, we can make fuel and oxygen, instead of lifting both out of earth's gravity well. this could unlock a gigantic generation of probe exploration for much cheaper launch costs. and perhaps even human habitation, and later, human travel to mars etc.

mars - I don't see any good reasons to rush humans to mars, it would be a stunt at best. the distances involved and the amount of resources they'd have to schlep are daunting with current technologies.

so maybe a reason to start robotic exploration of the moon, specifically lunar lava tubes for potential habitation and shaded craters where water ice might be recoverable.

none of it should take our priority off of stopping climate collapse tho. let's keep the only space ship we've got habitable first.

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in." - Robert A. Heinlein

On the moon, I am guessing some sort of railgun facility. Designate a specific spot on Earth, and you can launch mineral packets to crash there for terrestrial harvesting. Mind, I can see horrific consequences if something goes wrong.

In an old game called Stars!, I used to prepare worlds via mineral deposits to serve as industrial centers. The process also conveniently cleared out the previous inhabitants.

I'd love to hear about radio telescopes on the far side to research the Universe, but I'm not writing the checks. Or am I -- since US govt. taxpayer funds are getting spent in Melon's yard.

The ONE justifiable thing I could see is to set up a massive telescopic observatory on the far side of the moon.

Why the far side? Because the moon goes into eclipse many times a year and on those occasions when it's a full lunar eclipse - at the far side, it is in the shadow of earth and is for a few minutes, the darkest place in the solar system we can have massive equipment arrays permanently set up to look into deepest space.

Find the Ghosts Of Mars.

It's a lot cheaper to launch with just the fuel needed to get to the moon, then refuel there and launch again in the much lighter gravity. It'll make it easier/cheaper/less resource intensive to explore space.

The Moon is a staging area and supply of resources. Lunar launch costs are almost negligible to Earth, so large scale mining of rare earths, deuterium, and other metals is viable. And the low gravity means building/launching giant ships capable of reaching the outer solar system is possible.

The research and knowledge gained from a lunar base would almost certainly far exceed the cost of building it as well. Science and practices in medical and botanical fields that would be directly applicable here on Earth, but are not possible or would not be studied without the existence of a lunar base.

If you're looking at future opportunity, figure out how to make a cheap and effective heat shield out of lunar regolith in a vacuum. The major cost of returning materials to Earth is the return vehicle. Having to send parts from Earth very quickly makes everything unprofitable.

Check out that book “Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson

Begin getting the species out of the solar system.

Yes, I know many of you think we should all die in a fire, but personally, I'm a fan of "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov.

Anyway, wherever you happen to be on this flaming cannonball of a planet we call home, I hope you're having an excellent day.

I think it is a certain amount of 'because we can' and a medium to large amount of 'because china can'

Is there some benefit Delta V wise to having a lunar or orbiting lunar base perhaps?

same thing theyre doing here. exploit the resources til the planet is destroyed

The same thing we do here I guess.