Re: Why has the moon not been colonized?

Greetings,

The question "why has the moon not been colonized?" is, I think, more a political and economic question than a scientific one. The reason the moon hasn't been colonized is that no one has wanted to do it badly enough. As you say, the technology exists, but there are always other things to spend the money on, and colonizing the moon has not been a priority for any nation or organization.

A moon colony would be a huge project, though. The current cost to get something into low Earth orbit is in the thousands of (US) dollars per kilogram range. Say a tourist wanted to go to the moon for 2 weeks. Just sending them and their food and water to low earth orbit (say a 75 kg person, 5kg food & water per day) would probably cost more than US$300 000. There are a lot more costs to get to the moon, including air to breathe, a transportation vehicle, and somewhere to stay when you get there. So not too many people are going to be taking vacations on the moon anytime soon.

But there are people who are interested in going "back to the moon". One such group is The Artemis Project; another is the National Space Society (see their Back to the Moon policy forum), and even NASA (see their Exploration Server).

Assuming nothing terrible happens to the Earth or its human inhabitants, I think it's only a matter of time before a moon colony becomes reality. If you want to see this happen, I urge you to get involved with some of the above organizations and see what you can do about it!

Pauline