WHere to even ask this question?

[dj13]

I've been thinking about the physical building of a lunar post and how it would proceed. The minerals contained in lunar dust would be the easiest source for many usefull substances in building and expanding existing posts. Being as this is not so much an astronomy question, where would I ask the question (which sounds like the basis of a duh comment); <br />How does one vacuum up lunar dust?

 

[Saiph]

Here works.<br /><br />I'd favor an underground tunnel complex myself. Helps insulate against temperature extremes, radiation, and what-not.<br /><br />Now, the question is; Why a lunar outpost? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Shovel would seem to work about as good as anything.<br /><br />Do not ask about vacuum cleaners on the moon around here. Many of us are still traumatized from the lunar helicopter fiasco.<br /><br />In fact, fiasco seems inadequate as the word we should be using in reference to that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

And here we go. I knew I shouldn't have brought up the helicopter thing.<br /><br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[nexium]

I agree with Saiph, except we can analyze how, even if no one explains why. We need a small stucture on the surface to provide air locks to supply craft and a way for people in space suits to Moon walk. Ground penitrating radar should choose the spot where natural tunnels extend the deepest, as finding water, and other volitiles probability increases with depth. The same statagy should work well on any body with a warm or cool interior as opposed to a hot interior. Neil

 

[dj13]

My feelings on why a lunar outpost. beyond these first impressions I could go on and on.<br /> <br /> First, it will show that we can. It will show common folk that there is a place out there for them now, not just someday.<br /><br /> Then it will provide a lower gravity place to launch from, thus cheaper in the long haul. Gravity becomes a tool and speed and ease of assembly will likely be higher in a low gravity environment than in a no gravity one. It will provide raw materials, perhaps everything we will need eventually. Eventually being something like 50 years after first outpost establishment. <br /><br /> It may provide recreation and or health solutions to many whom gravity seems to be the biggest drag to continued living.<br /><br /> It will provide the blueprint for just how to establish truely long distance, hostile environment outposts at places where the local resources are worth the hassle of fighting the environemt, think unobtainium from the movie 'The Core'.<br /><br /> Perhaps it would provide a place where those folks with more money than god could purchase true isolation. Offer 100 square mile plots with unassailable title, on the moon, and watch the rush of gazillionaires or mining collectives snatching them up. This alone could probably pay for the whole endeavor. Not to mention the more rapid advances in technolegies necessary to get those gazillionaires to their properties, or those minerals into circulation. All funded by their unreasonable wealth or reasonable speculation. At first remember that all that money is spent down here, creating jobs. As yet not one cent has been spent in space. All of it is spent here. That will change someday. <br /><br /> One day there will be extraplanetary life damn it, even if it is totaly created by humans from earth. However, evidence suggests the possibility of microbial or smaller life exists in cometary fragments or other space flotsam, and an isolation ward of sorts on the moon might preven

 

[Saiph]

why ask elsewhere? Here is as good as any for this topic.<br /><br />Lower gravity does mean cheaper rockets can get into space. However, I don't know if it will be cheaper in the long run, unless, maybe, the extreme long run (centuries down the line...maybe).<br /><br />Why? Because of the huge infrastructure required to build spacecraft. I don't know if the moon could even support it (resource wise). The cost of the infrastructure, if it can, is absolutely phenomenal in it's own right. Factor in the hostile environment, and the requirement to ship all of that material to the moon first...and it gets astronomical!<br /><br />Because not only do you need the raw materials (which it may be very short of, even in metals), but you have to find it, mine it, and "process it". I'm not exactly sure how to smelt iron in a vacuum (what would you use for a heat source?).<br /><br />As for wealthy billionares paying the ticket...Bill gates would have problems paying for it, and that's "if" he liquidated everything (most of his net worth is tied up in other things that <i>can</i> be sold...) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[igorsboss]

<font color="yellow">How does one vacuum up lunar dust?</font><br /><br />The moon is in a vacuum.<br />Vacuums collect dust.<br />That's why the moon is so dusty.

 

[douglas_clark]

Saiph,<br /><br />If you see the Moon as a desirable place to go to, and if there are reasons, then the Moon could be developed pretty rapidly. I'm up for emigration pdq, I suspect you would be too <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> That would surely give us a Mars Pad.