http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/2174.pdf

We’re going to have a Moon-base some day.  At the rate things are going, maybe towards the end of my lifetime, but I think it has become an inevitability, especially now that the taboo of private companies making space-launches has been broken.

We are going to the Moon.  It’s not as sexxy as Mars, so it doesn’t make the papers.  It’s been done before, so it doesn’t make the papers.  There are no aliens, so it doesn’t make the papers.  But that doesn’t mean that great minds and financial resources aren’t looking in that direction.

The paper above is taking a look at the moon from a more structural point of view.  We’ve had experiments done to figure out how to use lunar surface materials in 3d printing machines to make structural components, combine that technology with structurally sound existing geology and we might just be able to build a base sooner than you think.

We don’t *have* to build up, you see.  People have inhabited caves, built structures into the walls of cliffs and into ravines for thousands of years.  We can build down, we can take advantage of what’s already there to build more swiftly, to build more efficiently.  Up can come later.