Thermal Shelter on the moon

Thermal Shelter on the moon

The thermal shelter on the moon that people should be concerned with now is a shelter for remotely controlled machines. To be economically effective, such machines must last more than two weeks, the length of time from sunrise to sunset on the moon. The Chinese made a machine last over night and continue working month after month. They used chunks of radioactive material, (probably plutonium 238), to provide heat and a small amount of electrical power during the sunset to sunrise period. This tactic makes maintaining a cool enough temperature for operation during the sunrise to sunset period more difficult, and it is rather expensive. The thermal shelter concept I feature here is a double walled building of prefabricated charred corrugated paper represented by the construction paper model in the photograph. The outer wall is 8 feet by 8 feet at the foundation and 8 feet high. With the inner wall, doorway, lintel, roof and six "V" cross section roof support girders (not shown because they are hidden by the roof) that comes to 550 square feet of charred corrugated paper including 38 square feet to allow for slot and tab construction technique with prefabricated pieces. If I take a popular grade of corrugated paper and consider charring it to 40 percent of its original weight I get 23 square feet per pound. That makes about 24 pounds of charred corrugated paper for the building walls, 6 pounds for the 400 buttons strings and tensioners that will fasten the inner and outer walls together that need to be shipped to the moon for the building, another 6 pounds for the door to the building and its handles and no weight that needs to be shipped to the moon for the sifted regolith fines that will fill the spaces between the inner and outer wall of the building and door and cover the roof acting as thermal insulation. Regolith fines make good insulation in the ambient vacuum situation in which they are found and in which they will be used. They are already on the moon wherever the thermal shelter needs to be built. When people need to be housed on the moon they will need much more complicated facilities. They will need a structure able to hold atmospheric pressure, a much more restricted temperature and humidity environment, lighting, food, water, furniture suitable for working, resting, eating and sleeping and waste disposal facilities. We will never be able to afford to build such facilities on the moon if we do not first build the facilities to be used to make remotely controlled devices on the moon cost-effective.

To see more of industrial infrastructure to be built by remotely controlled machines on the moon and various concerns about how this will be done, see RECYCLING ROCKET EXHAUST

To see proposed use of self-contained isolated breathing apparatus (SCIBA) for people working on the moon when industrial development gets that far see Self-Contained Isolated Breathing Apparatus