lunar mining

[backtrax]

I whole-heartedly agree, they should have a base on the moon, many reasons to do so. In Kennedy's words, "We do not do these things, because they are Easy...."
With a moon base nuke-propulsion could be a reality, a staging point from which nuke-ships could be launched by other means of propulsion, gotten into a flightpath where the ignition of nuclear materials (And expulsion of radioactives) couldn't come back to the earth or the moon. Nuclear rockets may be the only way to transport meaningful amounts of support materials to a permanate mars-base.