Building material for moonbase

[Roadam]

When we are going to buid a base on the moon we will need building material. Fortunately it is already there. Whole moon is covered with regolith(2-20m). Astronauts will only have to carry with them some parabolic mirrors to heat regolith and they would have sturdy material.

 

Maybe not really good for biospheres and habitats but for foundations, shielding, roads it could come handy.

 

What do you think?

[anglepose]

when we build a moon base i think that a key material would be aero gel it is super light so would not need massive rockets to take it there and could be a usefull building material fo biospheres

[TheFaithfulStone]

Aerogels won't work in a vacuum. They're mostly empty space.

 

Perhaps if you made an aerogel "sandwich" with mylar and aerogel you could get extreme insulation foam But I'm not so sure that putting it in a vacuum would result in the aerogel exploding, since the air-pressure within the aerogel would be so much greater than that out. (But then, the tensile strength of mylar is pretty high.)

[Jay-qu]

This is not the first I have heard of the idea.. and it is also somewhat harder than just taking mirrors - A large processing plant with a lot of electricity will be needed for the constant production needed to get enough materials to build a base. But it is no doubt do-able.

[Mercedes Benzene]

Well, Bush seems keen on inhabiting the moon ;) .

Maybe he (with his unimaginable wisdom);) will personally come up with an economical method for building stuff on the moon.

 

Perhaps you may have not cought the drastic sarcastic undertones in what I've just said. ^^^^:lol:

[Roadam]

Economical? No, nothing is economical when you have to launch so many things up. When someone develops single stage to orbit launcher and maglev track on the moon, then we are talking about economical. But first it must be built.

 

Another thing about that mirrors. If you send 2t rover on the moon with buldozzer and some big mirror on it, it could in some time build landing strip and anything else you can build with that basic equipment.

 

Moreover, if you send a small factory(1t at least), and feed it with FeTiO3 and with about 1tonn of hydrogen(which you bring from earth), you get many tonns of iron, titanium oxide and at least 8tonns of water.:) And from titanium oxide you can get more oxigen and titanium.

 

Problems with landing? Have a km per second too much? Make a landing strip covered with iron, spacecraft with wheels and some electromagnets coud cheaply slow itself down in no time(electromagnetic braking). Dont like wheels? Build short circuled wires along the strip and place some permagnets on the spacecraft an you have magnetic levitation.

 

What could be simpler than establishing base on the moon?

[Mercedes Benzene]

hi....???

Do you have anything that you would like to add to this thread?:hyper:

[Turtle]

I learned something new about the Moon today; it has magnetic material on its surface! Moreover, this has been know for decades! The material is contained in strange spiral swirls once mistaken as craters. Here is a link to the article including close-up photos of these phenoms:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/552809/mysterious_lunar_swirls_stump_scientists/index.html

If you have a telescope, they say you can see these structures for yourself.:cup:

 

PS Check out C1ays moondust image here in our Hypography Science Gallery:

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=809&catid=17

Attached to the image is this great link on the Moon's constituant soils.:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar_knowledge/LTaylor.pdf