Not too far from Earth is a giant space rock
that has silently played host
to just twelve people in its entire history.
What would happen if we put our cosmic satellite to work
by covering it with solar panels?
This is WHAT IF,
and here's what would happen
if we covered the Moon with solar panels.
Because the Moon has little to no atmosphere,
there's no wind, no rain,
and no clouds on that space rock.
If a lunar weatherman were to tell you the forecast,
it would always be the same.
"Once again, today you're looking at a daytime high of 130°C (266°F)
and sunny, sunny, sunny."
Imagine how much energy we'd collect from a place
where the Sun never stopped shining.
But how would we even build a solar plant on the Moon?
One Japanese company, Shimizu, already has that covered.
They want to build a so-called Luna Ring.
And yes, it would look just the way it sounds -
a ring of solar panels spanning around the Moon.
The construction would stretch for 11,000 km (6,800 miles)
along the Moon's equator,
and would reach 400 km (250 miles) in width.
That's enough to cover half of the US.
Where on Earth would we even find enough materials
for assembling this enormous solar plant?
Well, the answer lies outside of our planet's natural budget.
Most of the building materials would come from the Moon itself.
We'd only have to launch the initial equipment over there -
just enough to start building more equipment
and manufacturing lunar robots.
Then a team of robots, together with a group of astronauts,
would handle the rest.
For starters, they'd construct huge excavator
and ore processing machines to mine the Moon.
Then, they'd begin assembling solar panels from the lunar materials.
With nothing but lunar soil and gravel,
they'd make concrete, ceramics and solar cells.
Meanwhile, astronauts on Earth
would be working on building spaceports in low Earth's orbit
to ship the remaining supplies, like hydrogen,
to the Moon.
Even with the most advanced technology we can think of,
the construction would take at least
two generations of humans to complete.
But once it's done, we'd have a super efficient lunar powerplant,
churning out power 24/7.
Because there are no bad weather days on the Moon.
Ever.
But what about getting that power back to Earth?
Well, that's the fun part.
On the Moon, the lunar power plant would transmit solar power
to the energy-converting facilities.
From there, the converted power would be beamed
to power-collecting stations on Earth
with lasers and microwaves.
How cool is that?
Potentially, it could deliver so much energy,
that we wouldn't need any other power sources at all.
Maybe building the lunar power plant would happen
at the same time we constructed
a human-occupied moonbase
that would one day grow into a fully-operational human colony.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.