Lunar impact and Moon base safety

[montmein69]

It seems meteorid impact have been underestimated<br /><br /><br />http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/01dec_lunarleonid.htm<br /><br />http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22dec_lunartaurid.htm<br /><br /><br />and even big impacts occur<br /><br />http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/13jun_lunarsporadic.html<br /><br />http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/lunar/program_overview.html<br /><br />Which solution ? Bury the base ?<br /><br />So one of the first payload of Ares5 should be a bulldozer to offer lowcost safety to the new cavemen ? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thermionic]

My guess is that equipment failure is a few orders of magnitude more significant a threat than a meteor. I think burying some volume of the living space has been discussed though.

 

[willpittenger]

If nothing else, it is a quick low mass way to provide radiation shielding. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

These impacts are spread over a huge area. The probability of one this size on a lunar station is astronomically small, tens of billions to one. Let's not go back to the early 20th century when people were afraid of meteors.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[montmein69]

JonClarke<br /><br />If you read carefully the article :<br /><br />http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/01dec_lunarleonid.htm <br /><br />Scientists are talking of 4 to 8 cm meteors. And due to the speed the hit is equivalent to a blast of 150 kg of TNT.<br />They are members of the NASA team ... Bill Cooke, is head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office<br /><br />I'm affraid your statistics are not the good ones ... the team want to have a better accuracy on their data to finalize their own statistics.<br /><br />Maybe are they waiting LRO to get more reliable data ? <br /><br />http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/ <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>