If you had more payload capacity to the moon than you actually needed what would you take?

[farmerben]

Space X famously launched a car on the test flight of falcon heavy, saying it was cooler than launching a block of concrete.  Yeah concrete is not that valuable in space, but what about rice or something.  Something future people might use.

It may happen again sometime soon.  Assume that in the near future we test new landers on the moon, for which there are not enough super high value payloads ready.  Or that the weight of high value equipment is such that we always have a few extra kilos of capacity we can take to the moon.

What would you take?

[darthgently]

I'd use any spare cargo budget to bring  emergency inflatable life support containers.  After awhile there would be emergency shelters dotting the Moon near the more popular landing zones that could be unboxed and inflated if required.  The containers would be hardened for durability and small until inflated.  All locations would be public knowledge and any astronaut in distress from any nation could make use of them.  

[AckSed]

Carbon. Luna is remarkably low in carbon and the first few settlements might cause a brief 'carbon rush' to set up 'dry ice' cartels at the permanently-shadowed craters in the South Pole.

Then people would be outright shipping in compressed blocks of artificial graphite for chemical feedstocks, electrodes for electrolysis of magnesium and aluminium, carbon dioxide foaming agent for silica insulation, methane rocket fuel and so on. Or polyethylene, as it can count as radiation protection... and then be cracked for its carbon and hydrogen.

There might then be a carbon Prohibition from shipping away Earth's 'natural' carbon, even though it's not true and the Earth could definitely use a lot less of it, and the cartels are also sneaking in their own because the crater CO2 is running dry.

Then Prohibition collapses just as asteroid mining and production is set up, leaving the cartels and the former 'carbon crackers' now dependent on the influx of carbonaceous asteroids. Or worse, left behind altogether.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, AckSed said:

Carbon. Luna is remarkably low in carbon and the first few settlements might cause a brief 'carbon rush' to set up 'dry ice' cartels at the permanently-shadowed craters in the South Pole.

Then people would be outright shipping in compressed blocks of artificial graphite for chemical feedstocks, electrodes for electrolysis of magnesium and aluminium, carbon dioxide foaming agent for silica insulation, methane rocket fuel and so on. Or polyethylene, as it can count as radiation protection... and then be cracked for its carbon and hydrogen.

There might then be a carbon Prohibition from shipping away Earth's 'natural' carbon, even though it's not true and the Earth could definitely use a lot less of it, and the cartels are also sneaking in their own because the crater CO2 is running dry.

Then Prohibition collapses just as asteroid mining and production is set up, leaving the cartels and the former 'carbon crackers' now dependent on the influx of carbonaceous asteroids. Or worse, left behind altogether.

This would be a great dovetail to what we should do with all the PET in consumer waste flow and already in landfills.  Imagine mining landfills for plastic!  We already know where it is and robots could separate it using their built-in MRI vision.  Ha

[kerbiloid]

Brilliants.

They can be a prize for the followers, or a source of carbon, which is rare on the Moon.

[farmerben]

Human produce a lot of carbon waste.  Maybe the most valuable thing to have piled on the moon (but super cheap on earth) is snacks.

[SunlitZelkova]

Nothing. Leave space for surface samples.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Nothing. Leave space for surface samples.

But once the cargo is unloaded there will be plenty of room for returning surface samples.  Unless you mean terrestrial surface samples delivered to the Moon?  That would be one way to incrementally build the Luna Golf Course and Country Club

[farmerben]

The premise of the question is what would you take to the moon, not what you could bring back.   Maybe because Elon decides to launch a ton of anything not concrete.  Or maybe you have a few kilos of extra capacity on each subsequent mission.  

You can have sample return missions, but would you fill the sample container with something valuable for the first half of the trip?

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, farmerben said:

The premise of the question is what would you take to the moon, not what you could bring back.   Maybe because Elon decides to launch a ton of anything not concrete.  Or maybe you have a few kilos of extra capacity on each subsequent mission.  

You can have sample return missions, but would you fill the sample container with something valuable for the first half of the trip?

No, because that would contaminate the container.

If it’s a one way mission I guess I would put all the flags of the world in it. I’d also put memorabilia from the nations of Earth, I kind of physical lunar Voyager Golden Record.

[RCgothic]

I saw on XKCD a while back the idea to take a swimming pool of water. On the moon our power to weight ratio would be enough to leap like dolphins.

[kerbiloid]

On 2/20/2024 at 3:05 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

Nothing. Leave space for surface samples.

On 2/20/2024 at 4:29 AM, darthgently said:

But once the cargo is unloaded there will be plenty of room for returning surface samples. 

A ballast, to replace it with the lunar samples.

Maybe even flammable liquid ballast in labelled bottles.
Augmented with

On 2/19/2024 at 7:59 PM, farmerben said:

snacks

 

15 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

No, because that would contaminate the container.

The flammable liquid ballast in bottles doesn't contaminate, it disinfects.

[kerbiloid]

Boxes of rum, I just realized, what I wanted to mean.

Any space pirate needs it.

[55delta]

My first thought is use the extra space for lab work. Second thought is more supplies. Third thought is a larger, studier rover whose fenders won't keep falling off.