If we make the most of all space, how many people can live on the moon?
According to the City Population Density Table, the most densely populated city on Earth is Manila, with a population density of about 100,000 people per square mile (the actual number is slightly higher than that, but I like round numbers).
(Source: ivsky)
The lunar surface area is about 14.6 million square miles, so if you calculate the population density of Manila, the moon can accommodate 1.46 trillion people.
That's about 200 times the current population of Earth.
There are obviously a lot of problems with living on the moon. First, to meet the food needs of so many people, there must be a lot of farmland. But ironically, you'll have to be able to grow enough food on the moon to get there. What to do? You need to farm under the huge dome while everyone lives under the farm. In any case, you need a dome device, because all the radiation from the lunar surface can cause harm to the human body. Living underground can slightly reduce the total area, but not too much – as long as you live 10 feet underground, you can be protected from the vast majority of radiation without wasting too much space.
Water is a more important issue because the moon has almost no water. But if properly planned, comets could be directed into lunar orbit, docked with space elevators, and then slid ice from the ladder to the lunar surface. It will take centuries and countless dollars, but it can be achieved. All this water has another value — it provides another layer of radiation shielding for humans underground.
It's also easy to drink this water. Water the crops first, and the water will steam and some of the water will evaporate. Water vapor collects on the surface of the large dome and then drips down the edges. This water is the purest – almost unpolluted and of course drinkable. That's what people drink. Sewage is collected and used to fertilize and water crops. It's also easy to sterilize the waste, just leave it in the sun and cover it with thin plastic – maybe the solar radiation will disinfect you for free as it is transported from the ground to the dome farm.
The far side of the Moon
Plants feed on waste and form a circulatory system.
By the way, this is exactly how the Earth works (apart from the huge dome, the Earth has only one: the atmosphere!). ）
This is the energy problem, of course, at this time, we can control the fusion, so we will have enough energy. In addition, the moon's interior is still quite warm, so the moon's selenium thermal energy (similar to geothermal, but the moon has it and Earth does not) is easy to exploit. Without thinking about any wildlife or ecosystems, construction can be carried out without delay.
I highly doubt that we will have trillions of people living on the moon. That's quite a high density! But we can do that.
By the way, if we build multi-storey buildings below the lunar surface, the number of lunar inhabitants will multiply with the number of building floors. Theoretically, the moon could be packed with trillions of people, even though at some point food and water would run out, even if the entire lunar surface was full of food.
It all depends on how much effort the people on Earth are willing to put into it. The problem with having a lunar colony is that all the materials needed to build a colony must be transported from Earth, a costly, time-consuming undertaking. If there are also multiple countries involved, then make sure that each country and its equipment can live in harmony!
Related knowledge
Lunar colonization is a concept of permanent human habitation on the moon. Science fiction writers and proponents of space exploration often see the moon as an inevitable colony after human space exploration from Earth. Human colonization of celestial bodies beyond Earth is often one of the themes of science fiction. As the Earth's population increases and technological advances, proposals for space colonization have also been widely discussed and debated.
As technology advances, and concerns about the future of humanity on Earth increase, the vision of space colonization has evolved. Since the Moon is the closest object to Earth, the Moon is seen by many as the best candidate region for the first permanent exoplanet colony. At present, the main problem hindering the development of such colonies is the high cost of spaceflight.
Space Tourism corporations are proposing a months ball tourism project in the near future.
Author: forbes
FY: Darwin is not evolving today
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