Circumpolar highway on the Moon

[nexium]

We can build one at the moon's North pole and the moon's South pole. In event of a near by super nova, beam from a neutron star or prolonged mass ejection from our sun, some of the drivers will be shielded by the mass of the moon for as long as they can travel 100 miles per day, assuming each highway is about 2700 miles long. No atmosphere to carry radiation to the far side is a big plus. Please embellish, comment or refute. Neil

 

[kmarinas86]

<font color="yellow">Wouldn't it be easier to have space stations with appropriate orbits around the moon or Earth?</font><br /><br />No because in a orbit you traverse around the circumference of a planet or a moon, therefore you would not be shielded by the radiation. No space debris anywhere close the Earth-Moon system is sheilded from solar radiation perpetually. Eventually, any shaded orbiting space debris will be hit by sunlight. The further out your orbit, the more the radiation will diffuse into your area (though higher radiation particles do not diffuse as much longer length radio waves).

 

[ilbasso]

Wouldn't it be easier to build a tunnel or cavern in one spot?

 

[nexium]

All comments are appropriate. A circular orbit over the Equator of Earth, or Mars ( I don't think such an orbit is practical for Mercury, Venus or any of the moons) with a radius of about 15,000 miles can have a continous eclipse of the sun, thus sharply reducing gamma rays and xrays arriving from a solar mass ejection. The nulls for ionized particles would be at about the same radius, but outside the darker shadow of Earth, due to Earth's and the Sun's magnetic field. Mars might work as it has very little magnetic field.<br /> A tunnel 2700 miles long would be better, but not cheaper, as it needs to be at least 100 feet below the surface. Drive though tunnels and parking caverns as rest stops would be valuable additions. I'm presuming Moonies typically live and work under ground, but they need to change location on business and for pleasure. 2300 miles of moon diameter stops lots more radiation than 100 feet of rubble etc. Neil

 

[nexium]

I agree, a 2700 mile long highway is excessive for a few hundred moon inhabitants, but becomes practical for a million moonies. It allows the population centers to be a strip city 2700 miles long which greatly increases the probability of at least a few survivers, even if the danger is continous for weeks.<br /> People like to know they have an alternative to sweltering in a tiny shelter with too many other people, far below the surface. Keeping very deep shelters cool will be very difficult and costly.<br /> Without some highways, there won't be near enough lunar rovers to move people from usually safe shelters to the few extremely deep shelters, plus vehicle failure is more probable if the roads are poor. Neil

 

[nexium]

Hi kpsting: Will you believe a small plus? Very ionizing radiation does convert matter to dangerous radioactive isotopes, which are carried by the wind, if there is an atmosphere. I perhaps should have said negligible magnetic field is a big plus. Neil

 

[nexium]

I'm thinking a million times the typical leathal radiation presently in our solar system, for three weeks. This might kill nearly everyone on Earth. The few in the right place on the 2700 mile highway might be amoung the very few that survive anywhere in our solar system. Neil