Derek Howe March 23, 2015 12:30 AM

That would be awesome...now all we have to do is get off our collective ass and send people there to explore it! Apollo was nearly 50 years ago...what are we waiting for!?

BeWalt March 23, 2015 02:54 AM

Uh, and who wouldn't want to live in a cave on the moon. Not my idea of a nice vacation.

PlutoisaPlanet March 23, 2015 03:27 AM

Who wants to see "viagra commercials" emanating from the lunar surface anyone? This will be our future if we allow this to happen. Along with roads crisscrossing the lunar surface ruining the majestic beauty of the moon. Never mention the fact that we need the mass of the moon to stay exactly as it is. Since we need it to keep the tidal cycles on this planet to remain the same. ETC,…

pATREUS March 23, 2015 08:23 AM

@PlutoisaPlanet would you rather have roads criss-crossing the majestic beauty your home planet then? Nothing lasts forever, not even the Sun.

Tufr Tufrmone March 23, 2015 09:03 AM

There is a much bigger and obvious problem with the idea. Any break in the substructure at all will immediately result in a complete and immediate loss of whatever atmosphere is in the cavern. The very first accidental loss of air is going to be the last for the group of people living or working in the cavern.

Toffe Carling March 23, 2015 09:10 AM

PlutoisaPlanet@ You do know that the mass of the moon is ever changing right? Rocks hit it all the time at a rate that humans at the current level never could change the mass of the moon as much as it does naturally. And the moon is the same size as Africa, Go on Google earth and look at the sat pics and tell me at what height you can start seeing roads. It be one thing if the would start making domes on the moon so the whole surface would be green, that would be stupid.

Phil Taylor March 23, 2015 10:11 AM

Doesn't matter what they hold, no one wants to go there and it's too expensive!

MontanaPhil March 23, 2015 11:28 AM

Robert Heinlein proposed this idea in The Menace From Earth in 1957 and again in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in 1966. What took Purdue so long to come up with the idea?

Mike Malsed March 23, 2015 06:30 PM

that was my thought, MontanaPhil.
To others - highways would not need to be on the surface, in fact they wouldn't WANT to be on the surface. Solar radiation would be too harsh. Instead, pretty much everything would need to be underground either in the natural caverns (sealed, of course) or in manmade tunnels.
It's not that unfeasible.

Bill Bennett March 23, 2015 09:59 PM

Send Newt "moonbase" Gingrich to test it.