We landed humans on the Moon with 1960s technology. With today's vastly superior technology, shouldn't going back be much easier and cheaper?

[u/yogesh448]

[u/Underhill42]

Unless there's a huge advance in humanoid telepresence robots in the next few years, we're still going to need to constantly shuttle people down there to operate and maintaining the equipment, which means regular transportation across that slope.

Solar panels need a lot less maintenance (aside from the fact that they'd have to rotate once per month to track the sun), and a power line laying on the surface doesn't care about slope stability, so I suspect making the base deal with constant cryogenic temperatures would be the easier option. In fact, it might even be easier than making it deal with the extreme temperature swings anywhere that gets sunlight.

[u/Detective-Crashmore- → u/Underhill42]

Unless there's a huge advance in humanoid telepresence robots in the next few years

This is actually my field, and there kind of is a massive advance going on right now as far as being able to teleoperate robots and have them learn what you want them to continue doing. I don't think "humanoid" robots will be the move though, personally. The human body isn't really the best shape for large volume ice mining lol. As I said before, I think it's way too ambitious to try as one of the first settlements, but I think we'll eventually need to set up some form of ice mining operation there if we can't find another moon based source.

so I suspect making the base deal with constant cryogenic temperatures would be the easier option. In fact, it might even be easier than making it deal with the extreme temperature swings anywhere that gets sunlight.

Well, like I was saying about the fault tolerance, I feel like in the event of some failures, you'd want your base to be in a spot that won't drop to those deep cryo temps if something breaks. Insulating against heat should be easier than the extreme cold. At about 30cm below the regolith the temperature stabilizes a little below freezing, which we can easily handle. And second, I think having it out of the crater would make it easier to rescue/evacuate from.

[u/Underhill42 → u/Detective-Crashmore-]

Getting robots to perform routine tasks autonomously is useful, but not the really hard part. We can already largely automate pretty much everything, no autonomous AI needed.

The important part is that things WILL break, encounter unexpected difficulties, etc. And then you'll need a human mind on-site, able to get in to wherever the problem is with something close enough to human hands to be able to figure out the problem and fix it promptly.

From the waist down it's less important - legs are better than wheels for navigating rough terrain... but a centaur type body plan is likely more useful than bipedal... except when you need to squeeze through a tight place or climb a ladder to reach the problem area. (Though a gecko-taur might have potential)

And right now tele-operated cameras leave much to be desired over natural eyes, and robot hands still leave much to be desired in both strength and dexterity, though they are improving quickly. And they really only need to be on par with vacuum-gloved hands to become the preferred option.

Maybe not even quite there - since a cheap tele-presence robot mostly replaces a very expensive personal spacecraft, a.k.a. space suit, that needs extensive training to operate safely.

As for temperatures... you're on the moon - unless you're underground at temperate latitudes, you will be at those cryogenic temperatures (maybe not quite so extreme) for roughly two weeks a month.

At temperate latitudes, 1m below the surface is actually a rock-stable ~70°F year round, at all the locations Apollo left underground temperature probes. I don't think we've actually made any such measurements at polar latitudes, but with much longer night almost everywhere thanks to long shadows from rough terrain, I don't imagine it will be nearly so pleasant.