
How to build a Moon base - lainon
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07107-4
======
thwarted
There's a great book called "Welcome to Moonbase" by Ben Bova (1987) written
from the perspective of an established colony on the moon providing an
information handbook for someone recently relocated to live and work there. A
lot of ground is covered, from governance, technology, buildings, recreation,
mining, food, farming. I have fond memories of reading this book, and this
article reminded me of it. I think about that book often, it was, like this
article, very inspiring. It's interesting to see how the ideas about moon
habitation have, and have not, changed over the past 30 years. The mention of
"3d printing" the building structures in this piece, for example.

~~~
imglorp
I would expect tunneling to take the place of printing buildings, for a couple
of reasons. First, you can process the tunnel machine tailings for resources
like water ice, which you can then use for air and fuel and biology. Second,
you can live in the tunnels, which would give you as many meters of regolith
as radiation shielding as you wanted. And, interesting side fact, the Boring
Company TBM will fit inside a BFR.

[https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nlsc2008/pdf/2028.pdf](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/nlsc2008/pdf/2028.pdf)

[https://eps.utk.edu/faculty/taylor/Miller-
radiation%20measur...](https://eps.utk.edu/faculty/taylor/Miller-
radiation%20measurement.pdf)

~~~
therein
Not to mention the added benefit of doing some valuable underground research
during the process.

Wouldn't it be game changing if we found fossils really deep inside the moon
as we did this? If the impact that hit Earth to form the cluster of rocks that
eventually settled into what is now our Moon, I wouldn't expect it to
pulverize earth into dust but rather into large pieces. Imagine of some
fossils were encased in some of the larger rocks, which later settled deep
inside the lunar core.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The problem is, burning those fossil fuels takes oxygen. Oxygen on the moon
would probably be too precious to use that way.

~~~
andrewflnr
Pretty sure they're talking about paleontology, not fuel.

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wizardforhire
Standard reading on the subject and in my opinion should be added to the
hacker/maker space bible is the 1980 report by NASA on the subject “Advanced
Automation for Space Missions” [1]

In it they review all manufacturing capabilities to date and extrapolate them
to zero-g fractions there-of as well as hypothesize the ability of self
replicating robotic systems, with a final ephiany of energy break even using
Von Neumann replicators of only 15 days... using 1970s technology! A thought
engaging dry must-read.

[1] [http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/](http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/)

~~~
riffic
NASA source for this report:

[https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/198300...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19830007077.pdf)

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jchin
This year's FIRST Robotics Lego League Jr's theme is building a moon base.
This article is likely too dense for the 6-10 year old crowd but can offer the
coach/mentor some discussion ideas!

[http://firstlegoleaguejr.org/](http://firstlegoleaguejr.org/)

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nradov
Have they figured out how to deal with the abrasive lunar dust yet?

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924191552.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924191552.htm)

~~~
T-A
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitport)

~~~
nradov
That doesn't really solve the problem. The dust will still get into the joints
and abrade the outer layers.

~~~
T-A
It solves a big part of the problem.

As for the suits, they were designed half a century ago, before the problem
was known (and still worked well enough to get the job done). There has been
some progress since then:

[https://www.seeker.com/space/exploration/new-spacesuit-
syste...](https://www.seeker.com/space/exploration/new-spacesuit-system-could-
repel-destructive-moon-dust)

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aunty_helen
The Mars Society recently started a competition to design a Mars base.
[http://marscolony.marssociety.org/](http://marscolony.marssociety.org/)

Edit: Actually surprised no one had submitted that to HN so have taken the
liberty.

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mojo74
Bearing in mind the moon exerts a significant influence on our planet (driving
the seas tides and influencing the speed of the Earth's rotation), if humanity
somehow managed to do this i.e. set up industry on the moon, how long would it
be before what we did had an environmental impact on the earth?

That is to say, what would be a safe level of the moon's mass being lost to
mining before we had to stop and at what point would we realise the moon's
influence has become unpredictable?

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earth2mars
I am thinking people have to spend lot of time in VR to see colors (greenery,
sunlight and other colors). Moon base looks so grey/dark dust with dark skies.
I would die to see green tree!!

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ValleyOfTheMtns
Generally I'm pro-colonisation of space, but does anyone else feel
uncomfortable about changing the face of the moon? Initially, any human
presence of the moon will be indistinguishable from Earth, but if we look
forward 25-50 years from the first colonistation what sort of impact will we
have on the on the aesthetics of the moon by mining the regolith?

Life has been looking up at that luminous surface for hundreds of millions of
years. Is it important enough to preserve or should we prioritise human
progress? Maybe we can find compromise by building major installations and
mining operations on the far side of the moon.

~~~
platz
We seem pretty happy to chop the tops off mountains here on earth

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pgnas
Step 1 : get to the Moon

~~~
JdeBP
It's just one small step, I hear.

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dbcooper
There's no carbon on the moon.

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otabdeveloper2
'How' is the easy part.

'Why' is what they should really answer.

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trukterious
Plan B. Crash dozens of asteroids onto the moon at a few designated locations.
(Use rocks that might hit the earth or pass fairly close). Offer free mining
rights to companies on a first-there-first-served basis.

~~~
jandrese
Why crash asteroids on the Moon when its surface is covered in impact craters
from ancient strikes. The moon is geologically dead and has no atmosphere, so
anything kicked up in those old impacts should still be around.

~~~
trukterious
Hmm, interesting. I was thinking that we could mine fresh debris from the
asteroids themselves, in concentrated form. Plus saving the earth, of course.

~~~
minitoar
GP's point is that plenty of asteroids have crashed into the moon in a recent
enough time frame that the debris is still "fresh". After all, there's not
much erosion on the moon.

~~~
trukterious
Yes but not all in the same place, so the ore would presumably be less
concentrated?

