human-expansion-vs-nature

The prologue traces the formation of a lunar ridge from ancient cosmic impacts and details its current state billions of years later as a geological obstacle to human industrial expansion on the Moon. Commander Jerry Fields and engineer Kal Paskoe survey the ridge, which must be removed to make way for a new mass-driver track to launch lunar ore into space for colony construction. The chapter highlights the tension between preserving natural history and advancing human technological progress, as well as the reliance on advanced computer systems to plan the engineering task.