From the archive: Will you emigrate to the moon?

It's 1974 and the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov attempts to present the facts on lunar life

The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote about the colonisation of the moon for his book Our World in Space, extracted by the Observer Magazine ('Will you emigrate to the moon?') on 9 June 1974. It's amazing how quickly the future dates - this feels more nostalgic than being a credible scenario at the moment.

He starts on somewhat shaky ground. 'Consider the analogous case of the arrival of Columbus on the American continent,' he writes. Let's not. Suffice to say that at least there are no indigenous lunar peoples to exploit on the moon.