Wouldn't the moon be a great place to put huge satellite dishes?
Since the moon doesn't rotate, I think it would be an ideal place to install a vast field of huge dishes, for communications, weather, radio and TV etc. That could eliminate much of the space junk and clutter flying around the Earth, which complicates and endangers space missions.
Brant2008-01-20T12:50:18Z
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It doesn't rotate with respect to the earth, but it does wobble. The motion is called libration. Here's what it looks like. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration The antennas' signals would be affected by that, somewhat. (I'm not sure how high resolution they have to be.)
The bigger problem is that the earth rotates so the moon is visible from one point on the earth only part of the day. Its position in the sky is constantly changing. This wouldn't be impossible to deal with but it takes away most of the advantage you were supposing. Antennas on the moon might serve some purpose, but there would be little to be gained from putting them there as opposed to putting them into appropriate earth orbit.
You'll need a lot more power, because the moon is so far, and the moon rises and sets so will not be usuable all the time from any place on Earth.
Astronomers *have* thought of the far side of the moon, nicely shielded from terrestrial radio noise **all the time** as a very nice spot for sub-mm microwave and radio telescopes.
There are advantages and disadvantages to being in orbit vs. being on the moon.
The moon is a horrible thermal and dust environment to work in. The vacuum of orbit is much, much cleaner. Not only that... turning to any angle in orbit is trivial, even with the lightest of designs made of nothing but rods and foil. Once you are on a body with non-trivial gravitation, you need large and heavy mechanical contraptions that won't sag under their own weight.
While romantic feelings for standing on solid ground will probably always be with man, for engineering purposes orbital platforms are ALWAYS superior.