The United States of Esoterica

Precisely.

This raises a big question: If those pipelines are real, what would be flowing through them?

Depending upon the location, the pipes would be exposed to extreme temperatures -- and to extreme temperature swings. Substances that are liquid at higher temperatures will be frozen solid at lower ones. Those that are liquids at low temperatures will become gases at higher ones. Change the pressure, and one can change the phase of the substance -- but there will be cases where a short length of pipeline will be exposed to violent temperature swings.

Micrometeor impacts would also be an issue. They happen all the time on the surface of the moon. The odds of a strike in any given place might be low, but they still pose a risk.

I think it makes more sense to bury this sort of infrastructure, both to get greater control over things like temperature and for physical protection. That's not a trivial task given our technology, but a more advanced civilization would be able to do the job pretty easily.

It just doesn't make sense to judge these photos based on what they appear to show. You also have to ask whether the things they show make sense in terms of the engineering and physics questions involved -- and those questions suggest that running pipelines on the surface is a really bad idea.

Agreed.

It would make sense to bury them - which is why probably you would rarely see any moon images with what be a pipeline.

Eventually if left in place, some of them might be exposed by moonquakes (this would be dependent on their situation; as a pipeline or tube at the bottom of a slope or valley would tend towards staying buried and becoming more buried). But we cannot speculate on the intentions of the builders or nature of these pipeline-type structures. They might very well have been constructed with a short-term goal in mind and therefore be temporary or disposable. We cannot assume anything about their function but we can describe what they do appear to be and think what do we use those for, etc.

Plus there is the possibility that it could just be a scratch leading to a trick of light and shadow instead of a pipeline/tube leading to a pump or some other such delightful speculation.

Yeah, that's sorta how I'm leaning on the whole thing. Maybe I'm jaded by the nutty extremes to which Hoagland & Co. take the whole thing, but I have yet to see an image that really delivers a clear, "smoking gun" suggestion of real artifacts.

As far as moonquakes go, I remember reading that they DO happen sometimes. Some of the Apollo missions set up seismometers, and NASA was surprised to see that they showed activity.

Amen.

Geez, what does Hoagie have to do to prove himself to you people - find a robot head on the moon?! Oh wait, nevermind...

oh, the c3po head is going to be stick in our minds forever.

He's kind of like an old vaudevillian routine.

I have a copy of Dark Mission on my bookshelf, and that image of the robot head on the spine just stares out, quietly mocking me.

Fortunately, the book was a gift, so I don't have to think too hard about whether it was a wise purchase.