Forget politics, the Pope, Michael Jackson and the debate over Social Security for a minute (or longer if you can avoid cable news), and take note of some truly important news. Which is: researchers say that they may have located the perfect spot for a moon base. Not too hot, not too cold, in sunlight year round, and potentially close to ice water which could be used for, well, water, the manufacture of oxygen, or even the production of rocket fuel for those astronauts who get bored of moon golf and decide to push on toward Mars.
“The best spot to settle on the Moon may be on the northern rim of Peary crater, close to the north pole, says Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University…”A region with this relatively benign temperature range represents an attractive site for building hardware designed for long-term use,” Bussey and his colleagues write…The Peary crater, created long ago by the impact of an asteroid, is about 45 miles (73 kilometers) wide.”
Guess all those guys selling lunar real estate on the Web better start snapping up lunar craters (Warning: Wired magazine says watch out for the hazards of moon dust…). Bonus round: click here for the Top Ten Cool Moon Facts (#1: the Moon is moving away from Earth at the blazing rate of 3.5 centimeters a year. When the Moon was formed it was just 14,000 miles away. Today it is 280,000 miles distant)…
“Okay, Neil. You’ve got about 250 meters to the flag. And whaddaya say we head back to the condo after this hole so we can hit that hot tub party…?”
The Earthist Chronicles 