: Sea Wasp
: Well, since you'll have to be building everything on the Moon
: completely sealed, completely self contained, etc., barring a
: discovery of some hidden water stash or something, what's the real
: advantage of building it on the Moon rather than in orbit, where it's
: NOT at the bottom of that gravity well?

Mass to hide under wrt solar flares etc, and to supply some of the heavy
bits to construction projects.

However, yes, if it were me, I wouldn't go to either the moon or mars as
a *goal* in the near term, except insofar as the moon might have things
you could catapult to construction projects elsewhere instead of lugging
from earth. But that's just me.

What does mars, or the moon, have that you can't get on earth easier?

And as to going to mars or beyond, if you have a habitat that's been
run for years stably, and you've proven it self-sufficient, lofting it
on an orbit to most anywhere becomes much less risky.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw