zlacker

>>ajyoon+(OP)
As a thought experiment, if humanity wanted to go all in on trying to move industrial processes and data centers off planet, would it make more sense to do so on the moon?

The moon has:

- Some water

- Some materials that can be used to manufacture crude things (like heat sinks?)

- a ton of area to brute force the heat sink problem

- a surface to burry the data centers under to solve the radiation problem

- close enough to earth that remote controlled semi-automated robots work

I think this would only work if some powerful entity wanted to commit to a hyper-scale effort.

>>bs7280+3R
The elephant in the room for all lunar scenarios is lunar regolith. Even ignoring the toxicity to humans (big problem and will happen quite quickly for any humans there!), it will be a big long-term problem for robots and machinery in general.

>>strang+MV
A lot of people don't quite understand how terrible of a material lunar regolith dust is. There's not much stuff on Earth quite like it. The Moon doesn't experience any weathering, so its all super sharp and jagged compared to how smooth even the grittiest sand is here on Earth. Its electrostatically charged so it wants to cling to dang near everything. Its highly toxic to breathe in for the same reason as miner's lung. It will work its way into every joint and seal.