Lunarpedia:Outline draft/WHERE TO
Back To Main Outline Draft Index
Contents
PRELUDE
WHERE TO
Major Challenges to Settling the Moon
Dayspan Heat - Nightspan Cold
- The thermal problem as a superficial one in absence of a heat convecting atmosphere
- Shading joints, lubricated areas, material interface areas
- Development of cryo-lubricants
- Operations management issues
- Using materials with near-zero coefficient of thermal expansion
- Using materials that are both heat- and cold-hardy
Dust Control Problems
- Exploring electrostatic dust repulsion systems
- Turtle back spacesuits & conformal airlocks* (*also minimizes airlock cycling losses of oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor)
- Biodegradable suit and boot coverings
- Paving or sintering vehicle and pedestrian approaches to airlocks
- Covering joints and lubricated areas to minimize dust problem
Power Options dayspan
- Solar concentrators
- Solar panels
- Circum global solar powered supermagnetic belt
- Solar arrays distributing beamed power by relay sats
- L4, L5, L1, L2
- Lunar polar power tower global networks
- Nuclear
- Waste treatment
- Waste disposal
- Lunar nuclear fuels industry
- Scavenging nuclear wastes from Earth
- A lunar nuclear fuels industry based on the thorium 232 > uranium 233 cycle
Power Options nightspan
- Nuclear (see subcategories under Power Options Dayspan)
- Potentiation cycles - storing potential energy
- Water-oxygen fuel cells
- Flywheels
- Storage rings
- Hydroelectric loops
- Magma pools
- other
- Operations management
- Energy intensive dayspan tasks
- Energy-light nightspan tasks
Site Type Pros & Cons
Polar Sites
- Pros
- Both poles have "peaks of eternal sunshine" for power generation
- Thermal conditions do not vary greatly through the sunth (lunar month)
- Both poles are in the center of extensive coldtrap or permashade areas where we expect to find water-ice deposits
- Cons
- Both poles are rugged highland areas in which construction may be difficult
- The sunlight always comes in at, just above, or just below the horizon sibility and location identification problems
- The high amount of total tonnage needed to erect a solar power tower system
- Expected polar ice-deposits are of unknown quantity, concentration, and difficulty of extraction
- All our efforts mastering the challenges of the polar areas, will not prepare or enable us to set up outposts elsewhere on the Moon
- The polar highlands do not offer all the resources needed for industrialization
- Solar wind hydrogen, with which to make water, is available anywhere on the Moon
Mare-Highland Coast sites
- Pros
- Access to both major regolith suites
- Some coastal sites are also ilmenite rich
- Some coastal sites may involve potassium and phosphorus rich KREEP deposits
- Some coastal sites involve subsurface lavatubes
- Maria provide extensive areas of obstacle free transit
- Some coastal sites are much closer to the nearest circumpolar coldtraps, than either pole itself is to the nearest coast
- other
- Cons
- Extreme dayspan-nightspan temperature swings are a challenge to vehicle and structure design, as well as to lubricants
- The need to store up enough power during dayspan to get through the lunar nightspan
- Counterpoint: mastering these twin challenges will allow us to set up shop and settle anywhere on the Moon.
