Let’s ruin the moon

The Moon makes fun of us. It is very far away, which has historically protected it from the innate desire of the human species to desecrate it. Fortunately, NASA announced Thursday it has now selected the four companies with which it will enter into a contract to restart capitalism on the moon, thereby eliminating its unfair and undeserved advantage over screaming primates.

The US government has long rejected the idea that the Moon is some kind of “Global commons”, and he is not a signatory of the Moon Agreement, an international treaty intended to promote an equitable distribution of extra-world resources and prevent territorial claims, militarization and biological or industrial contamination of celestial bodies. Instead, it (and most other countries with advanced space programs) sees out-of-this-world resources as up for grabs for whoever gets there first. NASA started this year solicit offers for companies to launch the first mission to collect moon rocks and sell them in situ to NASA, which would be the first out-of-world sale of space resources.

NASA wrote in the announcement that it has selected four companies for the program: California-based Masten, Colorado-based Lunar Outpost, and two companies both called iSpace from Japan and Luxembourg. Neither company will receive much compensation for the effort – Masten will be the highest paid, at $ 15,000. But they will have bragging rights and a technical edge on NASA’s plan to usher in a new era of private business on Earth’s closest stellar neighbor.

This is controversial, to say the least. According to CNN, Astronomer Ph.D Stuart Clark warned in Science Focus that lunar mining could result in a “gold rush” and a “winner takes all” mentality, in which scientists lose “valuable geological clues”. University of Notre Dame engineering professor Clive Neal told CNN, “The way I see this is that if we look at lunar resources as a resource for science, a resource for exploration, and a resource for commercial participation. , everyone wins because the data dictates that we have more or less the same thing. “

Capitalism sucks, but if libertarian space leaders and Amazon Space are to go anywhere, they belong to a dead pile of rubble, swinging at 2,288 miles per hour, regularly strewn with meteorites, and about 250,000 miles from the rest of we. Earth’s dominant economic system also claims to generate better returns and creative solutions through competition, so capitalism could also compete to survive on a celestial body whose day / night cycle has Temperature swings of 450 degrees, and the longstanding myths about cheese by contrast, has no food.

Here are some points in favor of humanity fucking the Moon, for my part:

• The Moon is a large stupid rock that goes around the planet in a circle, representing a traffic hazard for sea routes close to Earth and panspermia.
• There is no life on the Moon, which means that any damage we do to it will only impact future generations of humans (moomans).
• The value of the Moon is primarily aesthetic, and it is possible that the long-term human habitation of a horribly polluted Moon results in a culture that finds its devastated landscape wonderfully disturbing.
• The Moon has no atmosphere and is exposed to space radiation; its surface is covered in hideous regolith (basically toxic shattered glass), and the lack of atmospheric resistance would make it very easy to kill people from long distances. You are already in mortal danger on the Moon regardless of whether we spill space oil on it. If you think a little carbon-based worm like you could mess with the Moon, then beware, because the Moon has tricked you into space travel right in its death trap.
• If we can successfully ruin the Moon, that’s an estimate 4.51 billion years and will not notice.
• It really attaches it to God.
• It may have a secret Nazi moon base, in which case to hell with the moon for hosting the Nazis.

I understand that these points, while very clever and dare I say intellectually unassailable, may not get along well with communist moon sympathizers and so-called “scientists”. If you think I’ve got something wrong as to why we should plunder levitating sky rock, tell me in the comments below.

Correction: The Moon ranges from approximately 225,000 to 250,000 miles from Earth depending on its position in orbit. We are sorry for the mistake.