It may sound like a science lesson but just remember the following equation.
I will return to it later as it has some relevance to my topic.
The letters "a" denote radius and "h" is height.
V-crater = π h (3a2 + h2)
6
In 1967 around 100 countries signed the Outer Space Treaty which contained protocols to protect the moon and wider galactic territories and make them available to all for the benefit of mankind.
This was considered important as it was clear that the earth's satellite was open and accessible to sovereignty claims by the Super Powers with the USA and USSR obsessed with the Space Race to land a man on its surface.
The likes of China, India and Israel have attempted to join in with hugely expensive yet nationally prestigious flights into space, other than with communications and science apparatus.
An interesting new development, just recently announced, is the approval by the US Federal Court for a private company "Moon Express" to land a robotic craft on the moon for commercial purposes.
This represents an ambitious new direction with possibilities for tourism, technological and scientific experimentation and mining of lunar resources.
Such entreprenurial exploitations have been fettered by a number of factors in the past.
The only regular journeys of larger vessels beyond earth's atmosphere have been linked to the orbiting platforms of Skylab, Mir and the International Space Station and financed by Governments or Nation States. Private missions have not been possible because of prohibitive costs and not a little danger of failure or other perils.
However, enterprising corporations have been excited by the prospect of opening up this new frontier.
This is now within reach with the facility to purchase from a company called Rocket Lab a suitably powerful projectile to escape earth's gravitational field and for the sum of five million pounds a pop.
There is every chance that as more organisations look to the moon as a new proposition that costs will reduce further.
What are the attractions of the mystical, magical moon?
Moon Express have been candid in their intentions to unlock the natural resources but have been careful to qualify this as being for the benefit of mankind.
Millions of years of assault by asteroids has enriched the dusty surface of the moon with platinum, gold, silver, iron and nickel all of which are in depleted supply on earth.
Decades of scientific exploration has produced a wealth of mapping detail relating to the lunar mineralogy and there are great expectations for an abundance of easily quarried or mined elements to make the investment worthwhile. Take the recent speculation from sensationalist media sources that the precious metals lode of a particular asteroid, if exploited could make a millionaire of every single person currently residing on planet earth.
An important recent discovery has been the existence of water on the moon and this is being regarded as a major incentive, the equivalent of earth oil. The composition of moon water makes it suitable to produce rocket fuel and if this could be manufactured in sufficient quantities then the moon would be able to take on the role of a gas station for interstellar travel rather than having to haul supplies from earth.
Environmentalists have expressed unease at the prospect of moon exploitation.
It is not only the pollution from what would be regular Rocket Lab sourced flights but the thought of commercial exploitation of the moon itself.
That brings me back nicely to the mathematical equation at the head of the page.
This is the formula to calculate the volume of a moon crater.
In fact one of the most well known craters on the surface, the Webb. This has a diameter of 21km and a depth of 0.8km.
By using the maths I have calculated that Webb Crater would be able to take, within its perfectly symmetrical and beautiful shape, the combined tonnage of biodegradable municipal waste from the world's great cities for a couple of centuries thereby solving that thorny 21st century issue of fly blown, methane emitting landfill.
Just let me work out how many bin bags it would take to fill up a rented space rocket.
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