
Why lunar colonies will need to live underground - lermontov
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151218-how-to-survive-the-freezing-lunar-night
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Symmetry
Just once I want to see someone say that helium-3 is valuable because of
dilution refriderators rather than fusion. They're technology we have now and
using needing lots of them for quantum computing isn't any more out there than
needing lots of helium-3 for fusion.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator)

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mrfusion
What about lava tubes? Or am I thinking of Mars?

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MichaelAO
"Lunar lava tubes may potentially serve a role as enclosures for human
habitats. Tunnels larger than 300 metres (980 ft) in diameter may exist, lying
under 40 metres (130 ft) or more of basalt with a stable temperature of −20 °C
(−4 °F). These natural tunnels provide protection from cosmic ray radiation,
meteorites, micrometeorites, and ejecta from impacts. They are shielded from
the variations in temperature at the lunar surface, which would provide a
stable environment for inhabitants."

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_lava_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_lava_tube)

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deftnerd
That's a big if... and they'll be pretty hard to find.

They would need to set up some seismographs and either use explosives or
meteor impacts to map the interior of the moon to try to find accessible lava
tubes.

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kafkaesq
Cool - just like all cartoon brochureware from my early childhood:

[http://paleofuture.com/blog/2010/3/3/lunar-colonies-of-
the-f...](http://paleofuture.com/blog/2010/3/3/lunar-colonies-of-the-
future-1969.html)

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huuu
Isn't this a solved problem? People have been living in the ISS for years.

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Symmetry
The article mainly talks about temperature control but the other big reason to
bury a lunar base is concerns about radiation. On Earth we have a big magnetic
field to protect us from charged particles (like the helium-3 that ends up in
lunar regolith) and an atmosphere to protect us from cosmic rays.

The ISS gets the full dose of cosmic rays being outside the atmosphere but
those aren't that large a risk. For charged particles the ISS sits inside the
inner Van Allen Belt which is the layer of charged particles that have been
trapped by Earth's magnetic field. So astronauts are safe from all the high
speed electrons and atomic nuclei that you'd have to endure during the day on
the Moon's surface.

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iwwr
The Moon should grant a little more protection than the ISS since you can
shovel regolith on top. As far as the raw radiation environment, it's about
the same, in both cases half the sky is covered by a large planetary body.

The Earth's magnetic field gives no distinct advantage to radiation protection
if you're already in a thin metal capsule.

