A Lunar Colony

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tap_sa

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<font color="yellow">"solar is NOT efficient enough to power high energy densityh needs. "</font><br /><br />Care to explain why? What is this high energy density need that solar energy could not cover? Even if a square meter of solar panel would pump out just 100 watts what's that got to do with total energy need? Are you saying it is impossible to cover a square kilometer or twenty of moon surface with these panels? Is it impossible to spread these facilities around moon circumference and connect with a power grid?<br /><br />I can see temporary fooling around with RTGs during initial phases but first real plant set up on the moon ought be churning out solar panels from indigenous resources. The next transmission poles with calcium power lines.
 
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scottb50

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Why do we desperately need Carbon? What reason would we need to ship Carbon to the Moon. What we need is Hydrogen and Oxygen.<br /><br />As I pointed out earlier the mass of equipment needed to produce Oxygen on the moon would allow us to carry a lot of water, an extremely stable means of transporting both Hydrogen and Oxygen.<br /><br />Burn the Methane and you then have to deal with the exhaust What do you do with all that Carbon? Burn Hydrogen with Oxygen and you have to deal with, water. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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spacester

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Look steve, all I know about what you think on this subject is what you write. I am NEVER in pitbull mode. Guard dog sometimes, but I don't attack. I have seen your style in other threads and all I can say is pot/kettle. If someone does not bow to the great steve's all-encompassing wisdom and asks him to explain things he said that don't make sense, there goes the thread. So you woke up the guard dog. <br /><br />It is not pitbull mode, it is honest inquiry at space.com, you really ought to be used to it by now. You're not going to intimidate anyone here with your magnificence. It is evident to me that most folks on this thread have done a lot more homework on this subject than you, and we're not gonna just take everything you say at face value. <br /><br />You said: <br /><font color="yellow"> That of nuclear is vastly larger than that, To create a 2,000 MW plant, takes a few has. of space. To create a solar facility yielding that kind of energy density takes 10's of sq. kms. of high efficiency solar cells, and then only in direct sunlight. & for twice the time. <br /><br />That's the energy density factor, which means any lunar hab MUST have a nuclear source or it will not be able to function, safely or effectively.</font><br /><br />There is one thing I should point out for the sake of clarity: I pretty much am always thinking in terms of the very first steps to get established up there. Many folks like to talk about the "some day" scenario: "Some Day we will have thousands of people on the Moon." I don't care nearly as much about Some Day than about Getting Started. So when you say "any lunar hab" and 2 GW right next to each other, I take that as *any* hab, not just the ones we might build Some Day.<br /><br />Was there no relationship between the paragraphs then? We were talking about Getting Started, not Some Day. Just so you know.<br /><br />OK fine, I'm wrong and you're right, whatever it takes to keep the discussion going. I've read your posts carefully <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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bitbanger

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Why do we desperately need Carbon? What reason would we need to ship Carbon to the Moon. What we need is Hydrogen and Oxygen.<br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />First off, I didn't say we 'desperately' needed Carbon, just that it was an element that didn't occur naturally on the moon in recoverable amounts, unlike Oxygen. And life is based on carbon compounds. Without a source of carbon, growing food might be a bit of a problem. <br /><br />As I said earlier what we need to ship to the moon is materiels that don't exist there. Hydrogen is a big one but 80% of the moons surface is Oxygen in one form or another. Why ship in something that is already there?<br /><br />The carbon in methane ends up as CO which is useful for plant respiration, the other byproduct is H2O.<br /><br />Besides any water transport would need to ship as ice. You wouldn't want you big tank of water to freeze and burst.<br />
 
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scottb50

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I think as long as we have people we will have more than enough Carbon to handle without importing more to carry Hydrogen. <br /><br />I think it would be a simple matter to use water as a working fluid in Solar heat exchangers, I see no need to carry it as ice. Using it as shielding would require liquid water anyway and with all the other things we use water for there would be little reason to keep it solid.<br /><br />It would be feasible to launch ice though, the structural strength of the ice could eliminate structure liquids would contain. A thin membrane, for aerodynamic purposes and to contain melting. Frozen solid before launch it would be like launching a chunk of concrete.<br /><br />In my opinion water is what will take us beyond Earth, in a number of different ways. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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spacester

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<font color="yellow">All one sees here is a covert anti-nuclear bias</font><br /><br />Talk about your innuendo. Did you read my words "Nuclear would be fabulous"? I love nuclear energy on the moon. But it is politically problematic and if we want it we need to do our homework. We cannot jump ahead to the solution without the due diligence of exploring the alternatives.<br /><br />Thanks for pointing out that the night is long on the moon. Again. For the fifth time or so. We dummies need to be reminded of that on a daily basis I guess. Fortunately, we have steve here to serve that function. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /><br /><br />Dude, I am not ignoring a single thing you say. Show me one example of it. I studied your posts; you're a smart guy and so I've tried my best to extract wisdom from your posts. Yet you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge the existence of fuel cells. One might think you were working from a pro-nuclear bias.<br /><br />You continue to reject the use of logic. Only facts are to be considered, and steve is the final arbiter of facts. Give us an effing break, we don't play the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" game here.<br /><br />OK here are some facts for you. If you cannot deal with logic, I'll try to keep things on a level you can process. We can only do so much without logic though, I'm hoping you will figure that out at some point.<br /><br />I can buy Solar cells.<br /><br />I cannot buy a Nuclear Reactor.<br /><br />The lunar city will not spring up instantaneously. There will be stages of development. Energy needs will be less initially and will grow as the city grows.<br /><br />Ergo (Ooops, here's the logic part. I guess you'll have to skip ahead.)<br /><br />We can get started with solar right away, we cannot get started with nuclear until we have jumped thru a lot of political hoops.<br /><br />Perhaps you are not aware that there are political obstacles to launching nuclear material. Perhaps we need to account for t <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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arobie

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Steve-<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Look at the First post, which began this thread. It stated a lunar 'city'. Not a first prototype, nor observation station, nor anything else. But a city. and that means necessarily hundreds to thousands of people.</font><br /><br />Arobie- (first post)<br /><br /><font color="orange">A lunar city is possible with today's technology. We are now seeing NASA set out it's plan for a Lunar outpost at the south pole by 2018. That is excellent, and go NASA!, but it is only a scientific outpost. I'de like to see cities on the Moon. <br /><br />Actually, let me correct myself and use some correct terminology. <br /><br /><b>Settlement:</b> <br /><br />Determines the viability of and leads to a colony. Requires continual investment, or in other words is not trade-balanced. No children born. <br /><br /><b>Colony:</b> <br /><br />Is trade-balanced, but not necessarily self-sustaining. Children can be born. <br /><br /><b>City:</b> <br /><br />A self-sustaining human habitation. Children are born. <br /><br />Going by those definitions, we should call this incorrectly called "Lunar City" a Lunar Settlement or Lunar Colony. Our goal in this thread is to design a Lunar Colony. We will have to see how quickly we can turn a settlement into a colony. <br />-----</font><br /><br />Arobie (post on 08/02/05)-<br /><br /><font color="orange">I'm glad that you brought up the initial occupancy number. One hundred people is what I have been thinking also. For now, that's what we can use for a baseline number, but that number is subject to change as we design our colony. Discussion?? <br /></font><br /><br />Steve, I said city, but then corrected myself. I changed the phrase to colony. My definitions mention nothing about population size. The terms are based on whether the settlement/colony/city is trade-balanced, self-sustaining, and whether children are born.<br /><br />We are trying to develop a colony, but it will no doubt have to start out as a s
 
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nexium

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Lots of redundency, has frequently ment success and/or survivil, so yes we need as much nuclear energy as we can manage early in the moon program. We will bring some solar panels. Perhaps we can make more solar panels out of moon dirt for one man hour per square meter. If that is easy, why are we not making cheap solar panels out of Earth dirt? 10% efficiency is ok for both Moon and Earth, if the panels are cheap in some applications. One square kilometer may be ok, but tons of copper (or aluminum) are needed to collect the energy produced by 100 billion solar cells averaging one square centimeter each in a ten square kilometer array which produces 1000 megawatts while the sun is directly over head. If we instal stearable solar cells and/or steerable mirors, lots more space is needed to avoid shading while the sun is close to the horizon. Neil
 
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spacester

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<font color="yellow">sadly, you cannot discuss the issues, without attacking the person. You make mistakes here. I point them out and then you do not adjust, or admit those errors, but simply attack the messenger.</font><br /><br />What attacks? Quote the words of mine that you see as attacks.<br /><br />What errors? Quote the words of mine that you see as errors.<br /><br />Which nasty sarcasms and personal rejoinders? Quote me, I see none such, at least in my previous post. Prior to that, I needed to get your attention. It worked.<br /><br />What adjustment do you require?<br /><br />Which straw man fallacies? Quote me, I see none such. <br /><br />I stand accused of things I go out of my way to not do; you however have no qualms doing just what you accuse me of.<br /><br />Again, disagreeing with unsupported assertions are not personal attacks. Most people would respond by supporting their assertions better. Making observations about a poster's lack of responsiveness are not attacks.<br /><br />If you see lack of blind acceptance of your unsupported assertions as an attack, that's your problem, not mine. If my error is not agreeing with your so-called facts, you should try to establish them as facts rather than opinions. You have not done so in any way.<br /><br />Connect the dots for us steve. Don't just keep making assertions and call them facts. Don't ask us to set logic aside just so you can be "right".<br /><br />I thought you knew enough about the scientific method and the design process to know the difference between supposition and fact. I guess I was wrong.<br /><br />I made no comment that you had not posted before. You have. You made some good points about manufacturing, you made some good points about biology and child bearing in low g. I remember those.<br /><br />The comment I made is that we were making progress here until you made a poorly worded post - "any hab" in the context of 2 GW. Some people would say "oops, sorry about that, allow me to clarify". But <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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scottb50

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The facts are, as you point out, that H2 is a really serious limitting factor for a space hab of any type. As pointed out, O2 can be obtained from the silicates in moon rocks......<br /><br />I think you need three Elements to sustain a Station wherever it be in LEO, on the moon or Mars, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Nitrogen. You would also need Helium if you intend on using cryogenic storage of H2 and O2.<br /><br />Nitrogen will actually take up most of the mass because of the storage requirements. Water takes care of the other two Elements.<br /><br />H20 in large volumes would initially need to be shipped, anyway, as the lunar rock O2 extraction plant would take time to build and supply.....<br /><br />If you recycle the water it is a one time transport with occasional small additions because of loses. There would be no reason to need Oxygen generated on the moon. You could also not do that on Mars at all, little or no Oxygen in the soil, so you would need a unique system on the moon while using water will work easily in every environment. <br /><br />It might be wise to use CO2 reduction though as a means of recapturing Oxygen. Maybe the CH4 could be used for some purpose such as powering fuel cells.<br /><br />I also think this would have the possibilty of freeing us from oil here on Earth. Use conventional electicity, solar power or whatever to break down water and use the Hydrogen as a moderate to high pressure gas to power transportation. The technology would be the same. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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tap_sa

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<font color="yellow">" You could also not do that on Mars at all, little or no Oxygen in the soil"</font><br /><br />Bzzzt. Most minerals contain plenty of oxygen. Why do you think Mars is red? <i>Rust</i>.
 
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craig42

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Ok, the trouble seems to be we have no idea how much energy we need so can't really say which system we need over another. <br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Scott said he ISS uses less than 100KW<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote> <br /><br />Until, someone cares to crunch some numbers this will do.<br /><br /> Let's see the ISS supports what 3 people? (100/3 34kw each * 100 = 3300) So 3300kw (Per Day?) to keep the base clocking over. Is that possible with Solar? <br /><br />How much do factories add to that? I'll ignore that until someone cares to work out their energy requirements. <br /><br />What about generation for night Storage? We'll use 3300kw per day for 14 days, night side.<br />So 6600kw. Of course if we build at the poles 4000kw will run life support and give us night storage since night will be rare and short. <br /><br />Steve you said<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />"solar is NOT efficient enough to power high energy density needs. " <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />You seem to be knowledgeable in this area; would you be kind enough to tell me the comparative energy densities of solar and nuclear energy?<br /><br />Spacester calculates 121 meters solar farm can generate 5MW A whole Spare megawatt if at poles not, quite enough elsewhere, but only 1.6MW short. <br />Steve, how much power does your reactor get, and what area would it cover? I got 190MW thermal from your link, is that right? (Of course since we're still producing energy at night so 5MW should be enough since we only need to save a little energy for when the reactor needs maintenance) How much more area are the turbines going to take up? Is the total less than 121m? By how much?<br />Steve <blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> It’d require huge batteries <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />You mean large energy storage devices? Sure batteries are candidates but what about, flywheels, fuel cells and other technologies? <br /><br />Where is your f
 
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arobie

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<font color="yellow">"The issue is the energy supply to a lunar colony. A city, not a small scientific post, but a city composed of hundreds if not thousands of individuals."</font><br /><br />Stevehw,<br /><br />No, not a city. A colony is our goal. We most likely will have to start at settlement level, that is of course going by the definitions that I set out in my first post.<br /><br />As too my small take on the Nuclear/Solar Panel debate, I do really like nuclear, but at first, I want to plan on solar. Trying to push nuclear will be pushing down a very, very throny political path. After we have set up colony, then we can try to make the case for nuclear. If we can at that point gain nuclear capability, then all of our pre-existing solar power infrastucture can move to being the secondary power source.<br /><br />As craig also said, I am looking forward to some numbers. Then the real technicalities come out.
 
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spacester

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<font color="yellow">Ok, the trouble seems to be we have no idea how much energy we need so can't really say which system we need over another.</font><br /><br />Bingo. We need to choose a number. Hi Arobie!<br /><br />My view is that the best baseline number is the capacity of an available Nuclear Power Plant. Based on previous research by this alleged anti-nuke guy, the number we found was IIRC a 1 MW plant from Boeing (who did they buy to have that?).<br /><br />So let's use 1 MW. I'll adapt the calcs from earlier in the thread, but first . . . <br /><br />If we have a 1MW Nuke plant, what will be our nominal daytime usage? Nominal nighttime usage? Since I'm doing the calc, I have to grab some numbers. <br /><br />In my vision, a lot of the daytime *electricity* is used to run factory and construction robots that would not be running at night. The folks there for the night would have only one job: stay alive. So they would only need the electricity to maintain life support. So if we're sizing my construction plus factory plus life support electricity budget at 1 MW, we only need maybe 0.30 MW at night. Be that as it may, if we had a 1 MW nuke, we could run it at the same output as during the day.<br /><br />So let's assume we run the nuke at 85% of the 1 MW capacity == /> 0.85 MW<br /><br />Then let's look at the storage tanks to run at that rate at night without a nuke.<br /><br />Hydrogen: a reference from Harvard gives 4.23 lb./cu.ft. Liquid and 0.005229 for the Gas <br /><br />Hmm . . . how big of tanks do we need to store Hydrogen and Oxygen to get us thru the night? Let’s ignore the problems associated with liquid hydrogen for the moment, the volume in gaseous form will be too huge, that energy density thing. So we'll store it in liquid form and accept that engineering challenge. LOX tank volumes are some known fraction of LH2 tanks.<br /><br />A NASA paper on hydrogen gives 120E6 J/kg for Hydrogen’s heat of combustion but I also found a reference giving 319 BTU/cu.ft <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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tap_sa

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<font color="yellow">"There is an important caveat with fuel cells. Well several of them actually. The question here is can we solve the engineering challenges in time to make the technology reliable and low maintenance enough to serve as our means of staying alive at night. "</font><br /><br />Backup FC units standing by and storage full of spare parts. IIRC usually the biggest problem with FCs is contamination in the membrane. Conditions on the moon ought to make it easier to maintain proper purity levels. There aren't natural free volatiles at all, all fluids and gases in the system will be manmade, thus controllable.<br /><br />Btw the lunar night may offer excellent conditions for using heat engines. The black sky will be near perfect cold sink, maintaining sub 100K temps with proper radiators should pose no problem. Imagine here a Stirling engine with hydrogen as working fluid, operating between <100K and />1000K temperature difference, probably reaching well over 50% efficiency.
 
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scottb50

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I've looked in a number of places and can't get figures as far as dimensions and structural and fueled reactors. Anyone have a reliable source? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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spacester

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What a great idea, Tap_Sa! I don't remember hearing that one before. That *would* be a nice delta-T to work with, several hundred deg C should be doable. I wonder what the catch is? There's always a catch.<br /><br />So if we could store a bunch of thermal energy during the day, and hold that at high temperature, we could tap that energy at night for emergency electricity. How about Lithium Fluoride at 1121 K ?<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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spacester

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<font color="yellow">Let's take 1000 solar panels. At about 25% efficiency, that will be about 1.2 has. of space on the surface, after installation, of course. That will give about 340KW output, but only for about 45% of the time, more or less. <br /><br />And a 50 MW reactor would fit inside pretty much the same space, and give 50,000 KW output. That's the difference in energy density, in real terms. About 150 fold.</font><br /><br />Um steve, you keep using the following unit: 'has.' Is that hectares? With solar at 1360 W / sq meter * 25% = 340 W / sq meter, to generate 340 KW then your 1000 panels are 1 meter square? So 1000 m^2 = 1.2 'has', but a hectare is 10000 m^2 so I think you slipped a decimal. Are the panels going to take up 10% of the area they are deployed in then?<br /><br />BTW, I think most folks would agree that real estate on the moon is cheap, once you get there. IOW, we pay no more for the land as the solar field gets larger.<br /><br />Does anybody have any kind of estimate of the mass of a space-rated nuke power plant of any size?<br /><br />I know we have to do some calcs on what our actual power needs are, but it seems to me that 50 MW is way, way, way more power than we need for what we've talked about here. Sure it would be fabulous to be super-rich in available energy, but we can't have everything we want.<br /><br />I just don't see construction equipment needing that much power. Just as a rough gauge, 1 MW is equivalent to 1341 horsepower, so that's a lot of motive force to do our construction tasks. We could get a lot done with an electric motor power budget of maybe 250 horsepower. <br /><br />BTW, in my vision the bulk of the construction is done before people show up, so energy for life support needs would be zero during that phase. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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tap_sa

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<font color="yellow">" I wonder what the catch is? There's always a catch. "</font><br /><br />The catch is that cold sink's radiator has to be much bigger (surface area wise) than we are used to. Radiator's capacity is directly related to it's area and to the <i>fourth</i> power of temperature. (Stefan-Boltzmann law). Because there's no atmosphere to circulate through folded radiator area (as in car radiators) we need all that surface pointing towards cold space. Steve may consider this as another energy density problem, he seems to value the untouchability of lunar surface peculiarly high <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />The LiF looks interesting, but after quick gazing didn't find any figures on how many Joules it can store per kg (or BTUs/slug...). I was still thinking that energy would be stored as water cracked into H2/O2 during the day. The Stirlings could be used during the day too by switching hydrogen burner into concentrating mirror.
 
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tap_sa

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How much kW per person do you think first 'real' moonbase would need? Real moonbase meaning something more tangible than what ESAS proposes but not yet a moon city. A growing, almost selfsustaining base heavily doing ISRU, having something like 20-100 persons?
 
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bitbanger

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>But the specific warning I'm thinking of here is that you don't get all that chemical energy back in electricity. A lot of it is thermal. IIRC, with PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane), you're looking at 45% electricity, the rest as thermal energy in the form of steam.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That same caveat also applys to nuclear. I haven't found a reference to the Boeing nuclear power plant you use, but the usual way of reporting capacity from a reactor is either one number that specifies total energy output, or two numbers showing MWt (thermal) and MWe (electrical).<br /><br />Another major consideration that hasn't been addresses is the delivery of any nuclear reactor. Does anyone have any idea as to the total mass of even a 1MW reactor? And does that mass take into account the unusual stresses of launch? Based on some of the reactors I've been able to find on http://www.uic.com.au/nip60.htm a reactor with an output of 10-12 MWe weighs in at 600 tonnes. (Russian ABV) Even if we take into account the uprated version of the shuttle derived HLLV at 125 tons, launching a complete, ready to run reactor is not likely. <br /><br />If the plant is going to be constructed in place from shipped in components, then the available launching capacity is less of an issue. However we then have to ship in a construction crew and provide power to them while the plant is being built. This power is going to come from where? <br /><br />Admittedly, nuclear is probably a better long term solution than solar. Getting to the point where nuclear is both necessary and politically feasible is going to take quite a bit of time. Until then, the choice is likely to be between solar and fuel cells using shipped in fuel. <br />
 
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tap_sa

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<font color="yellow">"a reactor with an output of 10-12 MWe weighs in at 600 tonnes. (Russian ABV) "</font><br /><br />Btw why does the text continue to say that it would require a 2500t barge? I wonder if the 600t is only for the reactor itself. Add turbines, generators, condensers and whatnot and the figure becomes four digit.
 
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spacester

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<font color="yellow">"IN my view the bulk of the construction is done before the people show up." <br /><br />HUH? How does one get construction done without people? That will take energy.</font><br /><br />OK steve, look. Firstly it would so much more polite if you would actually read the thread.<br /><br />Secondly, you misquoted me. It is very subtle no doubt in your mind but I choose my words carefully and it makes a huge difference here. I did not say "In my view" I said "In my Vision". (If and when we get you up to speed on this collaboration thing we're trying to do here, you'll understand. You also left out the 'BTW'.)<br /><br />We all have a Vision, a picture in our mind of a future-world. Every single one of them is different. Yet we are trying to create a Shared Vision here. The best way I know of to pull that off is to respect everyone else's Vision while at the same time setting your own aside as required by the discussion at hand. It's not easy at all. But if we get enough bright folks like you to help inform our Shared Vision by keeping their Personal Vision separate then we can get something done here.<br /><br />So when I say "In my Vision" I'm admitting that I'm talking about not only my personal opinion, but in the context of my own personal future-world. But if I say "In my View" then I'm saying "Our Shared Vision should . . . " - I'm saying "based on what we've agreed to so far, and what we've discussed just now, it seems to me that we should do thus and so."<br /><br />How do we do construction without people? Telepresence: we control robots with personal computers on Earth. We design things in order to make that strategy work. Why this strategy? So we don't have to do life-support right away, so we can get started before the people show up.<br /><br />So the exercise here is not "how many fabulous things can we do with 50 MW" but "how fabulous can we get with reasonable amounts of readily available power?" You've heard about the mass-multiplier <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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spacester

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Okie-dokie steve, we get it. None of the ideas here that are not yours will work, and we need to do everything your way and the reason why is that you say so. Got it. Check. Message received. Very nice, what a sport. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> (Hopefully you can prove me wrong, that would be great.)<br /><br />So the people posting to this thread are free to choose between steve's way and the Shared Vision way. Fair enough. But how will we know? How will we make progress if we try to talk about two completely different approaches at the same time?<br /><br />The reason I have been so assertive with you steve, is that I've seen you shut down other threads with this behavior. It's been awhile AFAIK so I had hope you were into the collaboration thing. I have my answer.<br /><br />Seriously, why don't you start your own thread using your approach. It is much more conventional, so I'm sure you'll get participants, and you can have fun on that thread and we can get back to getting something done here. Are you in fact here with some agenda that involves shutting down progress in this thread?<br /><br />***<br />As to the technical responses to your latest post:<br /><br />So who are we going to send? The current Astronaut Corps? The training program for your approach is just as non-existant as are working remote systems.<br /><br />Wholly new technology? NOT. Ever seen Battle Bots? the DARPA challenge? Spirit and Opportunity?<br /><br />As I suspected, what is important to me is 'nit-picking' to you. sigh.<br /><br />I just love how you chide me for lack of "any rational, scientific or engineering basis" yet you make completely unsupported statements and want us all to do it your way. Well sir, I do research and I post equations and summaries of previous work and I use logic and you do none of those things. You just spout off and declare that 'it will be this way' because you say so, that's why! Funny stuff.<br /><br />So I guess there was no need for me to make technical respons <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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arobie

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Stevehw,<br /><br />You don't understand. It is possible to build a base with solar as it's power source. It is also possible to begin the construction using robots. Teleoperation. It is not new. Spirit and Opportunity for example. (They are MUCH harder to operate than robots would be on the Moon. Time lag is so much easier to handle on the Moon.) Have you heard about the teleoperated surgery done across the world? Robots. They are not new either. No need for examples here, atleast I hope I don't have to point them out to you.<br /><br />And using these techniques is what the colony in this thread is based on. That's the plan we are beginning with and working from. It has already been decided for the purposes of this thread. If you don't like it, quit wasting you time hear and go create another thread using nuclear power based Lunar cities as your basis. Please, if you don't like it, don't shut the thread down because it is based on principles you disagree with.<br /><br />Now, let us drop the debate over nuclear or solar for starting power sources. We are going with solar. Everyone, let's move on to more useful topics please.<br /><br />spacester,<br /><br />Good post on the glass making techniques. You posted quite a bit of great information. Do you know about the structural integrities of the different types of glasses?<br /><br />At the end of your post, you asked:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Is that very first payload the first generation factory making oxygen, glass, silicon and pure metals? Or is it nothing but solar panels and the means to put them to work?"</font><br /><br />At a glance, I lean towards the latter option. That first generation factory would be really nice to set up, but lets not push ourselves too hard. We should first establish and verify our electrical supply before we set up shop.<br /><br />How many solar panels should we import in the first delivered payload? How much electricity generation do we want (need?) to deliver for our initial po
 
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