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San Francisco, 8:27 AM
Sun Nov 8
10 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base

    A Battery Fabricated by Viruses

    African Scientists Set to Create a New Developed World

    Get Ready for Ultra-Thin Invisible Body Armor

    Major Discovery Could Lead to Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane

    A Natural Landscape in Microns

    Nanowire Power Shirt Generates Electricity While You Wear It

    Furore, a Fur Substitute, is Next-Gen Polyester

    This Lizard Drinks Through Its Foot, and Soon You Will Too

    Your Floor Can Glow in the Dark with Luminescent Gravel
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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of icelight icelight
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    Man, I had bet that one of the epoxy/slurry guys would be the first to come up with a working design. They seemed to promising. I guess the only thing I would be concerned about (besides the rather... exciting method of brick formation) is the ratio of dust to aluminum powder. Metal powder, even aluminum, is fairly heavy, and it might be prohibitively expensive to haul up enough to make bricks for a reasonably sized building. That, at least, was one of the pros to the epoxy guys, that they only needed 2-5% of the mass of the final brick in starting material from Earth.
     Reply
    icelight was starred icelight was unstarred
    Image of RAHfanboy RAHfanboy
    01/08/09

    @icelight: I thought the aluminum was already there as part of the "soil."
     Reply
    RAHfanboy was starred RAHfanboy was unstarred
    Image of Quilt Quilt
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    Make it a domed Moon home and you can put me down for 1.
     Reply
    Quilt was starred Quilt was unstarred
    Image of RAHfanboy RAHfanboy
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    I think long term, if there is such a thing, we will be living under ground, with only things like solar arrays and entryways and greenhouse domes on the surface. Start with robot miners and then (much) later move into the excavations. That's assuming there is anything to mine, and I think we will find that there is.
     Reply
    RAHfanboy was starred RAHfanboy was unstarred
    Image of tande04 tande04
    01/07/09

    @RAHfanboy: I thought there was already talk of a new space race because of the helium-3 on the moon. I know that one of China's stated intrests in landing a person on the moon is for the helium-3.
     Reply
    tande04 was starred tande04 was unstarred
    Image of RAHfanboy RAHfanboy
    01/07/09

    @tande04: And it's the military high ground. I was thinking we may find that almost everything we mine on Earth will be on the Moon as well, and of course, the Helium-3.
     Reply
    RAHfanboy was starred RAHfanboy was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    01/07/09

    @RAHfanboy: Military high ground. Hmm...

    You're thinking of MYCROFT and his idea, "We could throw rocks."

    Sweet.
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of RAHfanboy RAHfanboy
    01/08/09

    @Grey_Area: Scary.
     Reply
    RAHfanboy was starred RAHfanboy was unstarred
    Image of David Serrano David Serrano
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    I think nobody has the heart to tell them the bricks are useless without mortar. Guess the first buildings on the moon will be brick igloos!
     Reply
    David Serrano was starred David Serrano was unstarred
    Image of Annalee Newitz Annalee Newitz
    01/07/09

    @David Serrano: Yeah, actually, igloos are exactly what they're aiming for.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz was starred Annalee Newitz was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    01/07/09

    @David Serrano: Build the shell from these bricks then inflate a plastic bladder inside. Pop in an airlock and viola.
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of Pope John Peeps II Pope John Peeps II
    01/07/09

    @David Serrano: Bricks can be glued together, and with no wind or weather to speak of, it'll only take a tiny amount of glue.
     Reply
    Pope John Peeps II was starred Pope John Peeps II was unstarred
    Image of Gann Gann
    01/08/09

    @David Serrano: With their technique, the bricks could possibly be made in place, effectively fusing them together. Or, as someone else suggested, they could just build monolithically.
     Reply
    Gann was starred Gann was unstarred
    Image of Garrison Dean: R.O.A.C.H. Garrison Dean: R.O.A.C.H.
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    Natural building materials? Interesting, but this is all pointless once the University of Wisconsin finishes their project on making bricks from cheese.
     Reply
    Garrison Dean: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Garrison Dean: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred
    Image of twDarkflame twDarkflame
    01/07/09

    @Grrsn Dn: "everyone knows the moons made of cheese"
     Reply
    twDarkflame was starred twDarkflame was unstarred
    Image of Pope John Peeps II Pope John Peeps II
    01/07/09

    @twDarkflame: moon's


    apostrophe indicated possession. Moon is.

     Reply
    Pope John Peeps II was starred Pope John Peeps II was unstarred
    Image of corpore-metal corpore-metal
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    I don't think building or raw materials was ever really a problem for colonizing the Moon.


    The problem is what lunar gravity will do to the human body as children are born on the Moon. I don't think we will ever colonize the Moon or other planets in the solar system until we heavily bio-engineer ourselves. Until then, we're just visiting or letting the robots do all the work.

     Reply
    corpore-metal was starred corpore-metal was unstarred
    Image of RAHfanboy RAHfanboy
    01/07/09

    @corpore-metal: Or you just can't come home again, especially those born there. Our bodies will bio-engineer themselves over the generations. Earthers would find it to be a good retirement spot, with the lower gravity possibly extending lifespans considerably.
     Reply
    RAHfanboy was starred RAHfanboy was unstarred
    Image of Pope John Peeps II Pope John Peeps II
    01/07/09

    @RAHfanboy: Haha. I don't think you get how basic gravity is to biology. Bones, muscles, even circulation itself is completely built around gravity. Any less, and the body's systems start to get messed up.


    Living in space without some sort of artificial, created gravity will be impossible. Or at least will significantly shorten our lifespans.


    The best hope for the moon colony is to build very large rotating recreation facilities, to generate g-forces. That way every colonist will be able to recreate and relax for full days at a time.

     Reply
    Pope John Peeps II was starred Pope John Peeps II was unstarred
    Image of Purple Dave Purple Dave
    01/07/09

    @RAHfanboy:
    Sounds great...except for the bit where they all freaking _die_ during liftoff. That part might not sit so well with the AARP crowd.
     Reply
    Purple Dave was starred Purple Dave was unstarred
    Image of Tomosexual Tomosexual
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    Well it's good to see Virginia Tech students shooting for something
    *rimshot*
     Reply
    Tomosexual was starred Tomosexual was unstarred
    Image of crashedpc - Haifisch crashedpc - Haifisch
    01/07/09

    @Tomosexual: Yeah, my coworker tried that while we were there, visiting a local vendor. AWKWARD.
     Reply
    crashedpc - Haifisch was starred crashedpc - Haifisch was unstarred
    Image of Annalee Newitz Annalee Newitz
    01/07/09

    @Tomosexual: Boooo! Hiss!
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz was starred Annalee Newitz was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    01/07/09

    @Tomosexual: Too soon, dude, too soon.
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of KhaiJB KhaiJB
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    hmm and more applications than they think.


    could you pack a mold with ash and ali powder and 'fire' it in an underwater setting? (as in create walls etc in place more easily than trying to drain water / fill with concrete... thinking you tow the mold into place, site it and fire it (locking it to the seabed))

     Reply
    KhaiJB was starred KhaiJB was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    This will be very useful for China and India when they build the first habitats up there.
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of Log1c Log1c
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    The real question becomes, how much energy does it take to make a brick? An hour of energy collected from solar panels on the moon? A day? that would be an extremely long time to build a structure!
     Reply
    Log1c was starred Log1c was unstarred
    Image of goldfarb goldfarb
    01/07/09

    @Log1c: and how much aluminum powder we have to haul up there....
     Reply
    goldfarb was starred goldfarb was unstarred
    Image of twDarkflame twDarkflame
    01/07/09

    @Log1c: Thing is, its theorecticaly also possible to build crude solar panels from the surface dust of the moon.

    Effectively, you could have HUUUUGGGGGEEEEE arrays build far in advance for any base.


    Frankly I'd be drawing up plans for solar-cell building rovers right now.

    Sure, it would take years, decades even, but they could work pretty independantly and for a long time. Its not like theres much weather like mars.


    Eventualy we would have lovely big arrays for use by any base or mission that wants to plug into them.

     Reply
    twDarkflame was starred twDarkflame was unstarred
    Image of Grey_Area Grey_Area
    01/07/09

    @twDarkflame: So, after the solar panel arrays are finished we could send special rovers that would trundle along the lunar surface scooping up regolith and pooping out moonbricks. Then, once there's enough material to work with we send up colonists. Love it!
     Reply
    Grey_Area was starred Grey_Area was unstarred
    Image of crashedpc - Haifisch crashedpc - Haifisch
    01/07/09

    In reply to Building Blocks for the First Permanent Moon Base
    Hmm... you think they'll let me take a look at that when I'm in Blacksburg next month?
     Reply
    crashedpc - Haifisch was starred crashedpc - Haifisch was unstarred
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