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Here's How We'll Build A Cheap, Safe Lunar Base

 
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bulldogtrekker
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 9:07 pm    Post subject: Here's How We'll Build A Cheap, Safe Lunar Base Reply with quote

Here's How We'll Build A Cheap, Safe Lunar Base
Mark Strauss, I09



The "magnificent desolation" of the Moon might offer some great views, but otherwise it's a lousy place to live. Human explorers would need protection from a constant bombardment of radiation and extreme temperature shifts. A new video shows how we can inexpensively build an ideal shelter with robotic 3D printers.
The concept video, produced by the European Space Agency and the London architectural firm Foster + Partners, suggests that the ideal spot for a future base would be the rim of Shackleton Crater at the lunar South Pole.

The Moon's rotation is such that the Sun only grazes its poles at low angles. As a result, there would be nearly constant light along the crater's rim beside regions of permanent shadow. That makes it prime real estate, since the site would allow for plentiful solar power and relief from the hot and cold temperature extremes found across most of the Moon.


__________________3D-printing a lunar base


__________



LINK:
http://io9.com/heres-how-well-build-a-cheap-safe-lunar-base-1655992007
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2020 12:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_______________________________________

Bulldogtrekker's interesting post above was added to All Sci-Fi in November 2014, it's never gotten a single reply in five years! Shocked

Several months ago I came up with an idea that relates to the concept presented in the article above. I wrote it up in detail and saved the document . . . but then I forgot about it until I noticed it today.

I knew we had threads about colonies at the lunar poles, so I went look for on to add my post to. I found this thread by Bulldogtrekker's and realized that (a) it was the perfect thread for my reply, and (b) it solved the problem of this fine-but-neglected thread!

So, here's the idea I came up with.

As the article above states, the perfect places to build a lunar colonies is the north and south poles.






If the Earth has been visited by alien beings who’ve zipped around in our skies for decades (or centuries), then I think those aliens already have bases at those two locations.

The aliens are smart enough to know that the couldn’t build a base on the far side of the Moon, because eventually mankind would send camera probes and manned spacecraft around the Moon and see the big, alien complex!






So, they'd use the two places on the Moon that are best for lunar bases for the same reasons we would use them . . . and for several additional reasons which serve their own special purposes..

We all know, of course, that the lunar poles offer the only spots on the moon that never have to endure the killing heat of the sun — the conveniently located craters at both poles that remain in permanent shadow. This allows bases located in those craters to keep their living structures warm and well supplied with energy by using solar panels positioned along the rim which collect solar energy constantly.

Meanwhile, the areas that remain in permanent shadow at the bottoms of the craters can include areas where water ice remains permanently frozen.

Now, before some kindly soul says, “Ummm . . . Bud? We know all this,” I’m going to offer a few new ideas that I thought up today while having breakfast at Phat Daddy’s Café.



]


First of all, why should we assume that the aliens who have been visiting Earth for years didn’t snap up this prime real estate hundred years ago and build bases there long before Galileo even started playing Peeping Tom on the cosmos with his newest toy, the telescope?

Therefore, it’s entirely possible that aliens already have elaborate bases at both the north and south, from which they conduct all their secret operations in OUR solar system!

What secret operations, you may ask? Plenty, my friends!

First of all, the mining of the Moon! These bases can extend down into the Moon for many miles while the aliens excavate any materials they want from OUR beloved satellite!

And while they’re doing that, their mining spacecraft are zipping around the solar system, gutting all our juiciest asteroids by mining their precious metals, making sure that their looting of our solar systems takes place on the other side of the sun so that space-based telescopes like Hubble never gets a look at what’s going on.

Now, folks, I know what you’re thinking. “Bud is nuts! How could there be vast aliens bases located at the lunar poles without our probes finding any photographic evidence?”

That’s where this idea gets really interesting. Very Happy

Ask yourself this: What kind of pictures does NASA have of the lunar poles? They have picture of the crater rims there . . . and the shadows that never see the sunlight! But are there any “flash photos” of the dark areas?

Of course not.

Are there any imaging methods of those areas that would show a complex arrangement of alien structures hiding in those inky black shadows?

Yes, there are. But no such structures have been found.

But even if we flew over the lunar poles with probes that have cameras which could take infrared, radar, and flash picture, do we really think that advanced aliens couldn’t build a lunar base with structures that could fool cameras like those?

Of course not!

The aliens building would be painted black to fool any photographs in visible light. They would be insulated to prevent any heat from leaking out so that infrared images wouldn’t detect their presences.

And they could be given exteriors which appear natural and rock-like to fool any radar images from orbit.

In short, these miles-deep alien bases could be completely hidden from the eyes of man — even if astronauts stood on the crater rims and gazed down at the crater floors — while the aliens conducted their activities!

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 2:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

NASA’s Artemis missions will send humans to the Moon in a slightly different manner than the brave travelers of the Apollo missions experienced, but once they land, their objectives will be many. One of the biggest challenges of the Artemis program will be to develop ways of utilizing the Moon’s own material, including harvesting water from the lunar surface and using the loose material — called lunar regolith — as a resource.



A new study suggests that lunar regolith could become a viable building material when combined with something the astronauts will have plenty of; human pee. More specifically, urea, which is present in high levels within human urine, could be used as a chemical to make rigid structures out of material readily available on the Moon’s surface.

“Samples containing urea and naphthalene-based admixtures could be used to build up a structure without any noticeable deformation,” the researchers write in a paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. “Initial compressive strength of the samples with urea was higher than for the two other specimens containing superplasticizers, and it continued to rise even after 8 freeze-thaw cycles.”



Put simply, using urea from human urine to help bind the loose lunar material together worked wonderfully and could likely maintain its structural integrity even as the Moon freezes and thaws on a regular basis. This could make it useful for the construction of short-term lunar shelters, which will be very important if NASA indeed plans for the Artemis missions to be the first step toward a more permanent human presence on the Moon.

So people, save your pee for the Space Program! Gallons of it will have to be shipped off for soft landing on our Lunar neighbor! Either that or supply our brave Astronauts with lots of beer for their voyage!


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
So people, save your pee for the Space Program! Gallons of it will have to be shipped off for soft landing on our Lunar neighbor! Either that or supply our brave Astronauts with lots of beer for their voyage!

I thought this was a legitimate science article until I read that last part and realized it was just a rumor started by Trump to encourage men to enlist in his Space Force!

Join the Space Force! The Moon has free beer!



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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Except it's NOT a joke!

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/human-urine-could-help-astronauts-build-moon-bases-someday

My comment at the end was certainly meant to be mildly amusing, but the article is 100% real!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Okay, I admit that I thought it was an April Fools article like the one Eadie posted last year and thought was serious, even though I located the original article and discovered that the author stated it was a joke at the end of the text.

Not ever website that had the article included that disclaimer.

However, I did find several articles that say that urea, found in urine, can be used to help bind loose lunar material into more rigid shapes. And none of them say it's a joke.

But let's be realist about this, folks. It's absurd to suggest that we're actually going to use the tiny amounts of pee-pee the astronauts produce to create the material needed for buildings on the Moon.

I know that's not what anybody really thinks will happen, but the title of a CNN article (for example) is Moon bases could be built using astronaut urine - CNN

Yeah, right . . . Rolling Eyes

I guess after we've got a few hundred people living in a lunar colony we can make good use of their waste in this manner. But until then, this is just a gimmicky headline. It's funny, but it ain't real practical quite yet.

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Krel
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If they use this method, does that mean that the Astronauts won't have to fight the giant mutant Tardigades in the Lunar lava tubes and caves?

David.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In ancient Rome there were Pisscatoriums where citizens were invited to supply their...well...fluids... that were used for cleaning their togas. The urea in their urine as well as the ammonia bleached their wool togas to a bright white color.

Basically, there were three steps to doing laundry properly in the Roman world.

First, the clothing or new cloth had to be washed by the fuller, the fullo.

This was done by putting the clothes in a small tub full with a mixture of water, nitrum or fuller’s earth (known as creta fullonia), some alkali elements, and of course, urine. Water and urine appear to have been the main ingredients of this ancient detergent.

But how did a large prosperous fullonica get enough urine to do the laundry of Rome or Ostia? Well, they placed jars on street corners around the neighbourhood where they operated so that passersby could make a…donation.

I’m guessing the jars near tabernae might have been the most useful. You have to feel for the poor sod whose job it was to go and bring the full jars of urine back to the fullonica through the busy streets of Rome. Maybe people gave him a wide berth so as not to get splashed?

At any rate, once the clothes were in this cleaning mixture, the fuller would get in barefoot and stomp away, over and over, until the clothes were scrubbed of oil, dirt, and grease. This little dance was known as the saltus fullonicus, or the ‘fuller’s jump’.

The next step in the process was to rinse the clothing or cloth. This was done in a series of larger, interconnected wash basins into which poured fresh running water from the town water supply.

The fullo would start at the the dirty end, near the spout where the water exited, and then move up the basins toward the clean end where the water came out.

The final stage involved brushing the clothing (usually wool) with either thistly plants, or the skin of a hedgehog (insert sad face here). They were then hung to dry on a large upside-down wicker basket work with sulphur placed beneath it so as to allow the fumes to whiten the clothes.

High-end fullones, as part of this final stage in the process, might also have rubbed in cimolian, a fine white earth that was supposed to whiten the garment even further.

Once this was all done, your toga was ready to wear to your next imperial banquet!

A slave would tred on the fabric in huge vats in order to clean the fabric.

It was good training too, because a talented pee treader made a great grape treader in making wine! Hopefully they washed their feet between treads!

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