[Sohcahtoa82]

Really? I must be misunderstanding something then.

The Earth-Moon L1 point is ~63 km from the Moon. Let's say me and my gear weigh 200 lbs, and the Moon's gravity acceleration is 1.62 m/s^2. 63 km * 200 lbs * 1.62 m/s^2 gives a potential energy of only 2,213 kcal. The human body is only 18-26% efficient [0] at converting food into energy, so we're probably looking at around 10-13,000 calories. Depending on what you're eating, that's 4-10 lbs of food.

Obviously, I'm ignoring the time it would take to climb that far, but in terms of energy, it seems reasonable that a human could carry enough good with them, unless I'm gravely misunderstanding something.

I'm guess that assuming "potential energy" means "the energy needed to move X pounds to Y height at Z gravity" is incorrect.

[0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/46788/how-effici...

[saagarjha]

I believe your L1 distance is off by about three orders of magnitude.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Oh crap you're right, not sure how I got such a low number.