Roof Support

Architecture as Mole Hills, Standard dorm room

Supporting Roofs on the Moon

One serious problem will be your roof falling in on you.

Using the roof for radiation shielding

The need for radiation shielding for lunar settlement occupants means that there will be significant mass on the roof of all buildings used for long term occupancy. Much electronic equipment will need shielding too. This could be in the form of lunar regolith as suggested in Architecture as Mole Hills or material brought from Earth, but it must be present. If your roof falls in on you, you will be in trouble.

Inflatable housing

Since the interior living space must be at considerably higher air pressure than the exterior, it is only logical to use the force this pressure exerts on the outside walls to help support the weight of the roof. The rooms then become like balloons getting much of their strength from their internal pressure.

The problem come when you loss the pressure and the massive roof falls in on you. Lost of pressure, or blow out, is a real possibility caused by meteorites, ejecta, landing accident, or industrial accident. Even if you can get into an enviornmental suit, you will have to get to safety before your air supply runs out.

Safety rule

This problem will require a strong safety rule that will greatly affect the design of lunar buildings. One possible rule is this:

Roof Support Rule

With the internal building pressure completely lost, a person wearing an environmental suit must have enough clearance to crawl to safety even if a second person is lying immobile in the evacuation path.

Rule's effect

Such a rule, combined with the very high cost of bring mass from Earth, will make large open room very rare on the Moon. Most rooms will have to be at least narrow in one direction and will have to have central support for the roof. This support could take the form of strong partitions or columns.

What will be very difficult to build will be very large areas such as meeting rooms and mess halls. The absence of such rooms will make living in a lunar settlement even more claustrophobic. You will be able to see panoramic vistas of open space on a dozens of external monitors while living in series of cramped spaces.

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