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![]() By: Devon J. During your lifetime you may ask yourself, what happens if the earth is no longer capable of us anymore? The answer, go to the moon. So how much does it cost to live on the planet with four astronauts? Transportation For this, we’ll use the Saturn V. Its load can be up to 90,000 lbs with a per launch cost of $5,123,000,000 or $12,500 per pound (including research & development costs). That would make $2 million to transport one person to the moon. For landing, we’ll use twelve Lunar Landers. NASA created the LM Truck which could deliver items to the moon. They can carry 11,000 pounds and with the Saturn V can store 2 of them. With that, we can get the per pound cost to $318,000. Housing So we don’t really have a lot of knowledge of how everything is worked out or even half the information about it. Although Bigelow Aerospace has developed housing called the B330 spacecraft. The company has said that renting the B330 out for one day would be $1.25 million per day or $465 million for a year. The B330 is 43,000 lbs so it would take four truck landings and two Saturn V launches will equate to about $14 billion dollars. Food & Water The best way to plant it is to just grow it. We can bring 4.3 lbs of sweet potatoes, 0.8 lbs of tomatoes, and 0.4 lbs of strawberries. All four astronauts will need 12,000 calories. That means we need 7 lunar greenhouses and 510 lbs of fertilizer per year. So that would be $4.9 billion for food and $162 million for the fertilizer. We need water. Using water recycling and also for the greenhouses we need 12,030 lbs. So that would be in total $3.825 billion. Oxygen We need 2,701 lbs of oxygen for this journey or $860 million, although greenhouses can produce oxygen. That would be 0.75 pounds per day so that would be 5.25 lbs of oxygen it produces. So we just need 785 lbs of oxygen or $250 million. Electricity The best way to bring electricity is to bring a nuclear reactor. A little one is sufficient but we need it to carry out fission reactions during our mission. NASA says that it can make one for $1.4 billion. Conclusion After adding everything up. My estimate of four people living on the moon for one year is $36 billion. Is all of this worth it, maybe. If we have to leave earth because of the environment that we created, that $36 billion investment might just the best investment we’ve done. Sources That Made This Study Possible: https://bigelowaerospace.com/b330/ https://www.google.com/?safe=active&ssui=on#safe=active&q=calculator https://www.nasa.gov/ http://www.arizona.edu/
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