Possible Lunar Lava Tubes per Grail probe.

Void · 2016-12-19 22:14:05

http://phys.org/news/2016-04-grail-lava-tubes-moon.html
http://www.universetoday.com/128208/buried-lave-tubes/
Quote:

Where the Marius Hole is located, the team spotted a gravitational signature that was indicative of a subsurface cavity. But that was not all. Distributed across the Moon’s near side, Sood and his colleagues also noted that the GRAIL data indicated at least ten signatures that could resemble lava tubes. All are located near the dark areas left by ancient volcanic seas, with some measuring more than 100 km long and several kilometers wide.
Naturally, there are some doubts as to whether or not the readings are indicative of actual lava tubes. As the team indicated in their paper – “Detection of Buried Empty Lunar Lava Tubes Using Grail Gravity Data“, which contains the findings they presented at the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference – the structures they were looking for were similar or smaller in scale than the resolution of the gravity data.
As a result, it was difficult to determine whether or not the signals they spotted were in fact a sign of an underground recess, or a numerical artifact in the data. Because of this, proving the existence of stable, subsurface lava tubes will require a next-generation mission, one that has instruments which will be able to penetrate the lunar surface and confirm the presence of recesses.

So if ground penetrating radar confirms this, then rather big lava tubes to place cities in on the Moon.
I have often wondered what you would use to enhance lava tubes, but Antius might have provided something in a another topic.

Timbrel vaulting.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/11/ … aults.html

Multiple layers of tiles glued together, are immensely strong.

Glue on the Moon could be a problem relative to Mars, but I believe that there is CO and Hydrogen in the shadowed polar craters, or so it is thought.

And if you really want to do something interesting, you could fill them with ice covered lakes! (I need to do that).

Really, if that was useful, you could possibly get more ice from other locations and crash it on the Moon in the night side, much if it will not vaporize. Perhaps from Ceres?

But if you are going to have a lava tube habitat, why not seal it and have a temperate farmland in it. Pretty far fetched, but then again, if you did have a fraction of habitable land on the Moon err.. Under it's surface, it would really make it more valuable/habitable/useful.

As for the gravity question, I think Hypertoobs modified could offer a solution to keep humans healthy.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-theoretica … .html#nRlv
Quote:

The city of Philadelphia is shown inside a theoretical lunar lava tube. A Purdue University team of researchers explored whether lava tubes more than 1 kilometer wide could remain structurally stable on the moon. Credit: Purdue University/courtesy of David Blair

I could have added this to a "Moon" related thread, but you do that if you want to.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-19 22:28:45)

SpaceNut · 2016-12-20 18:09:12

Sounds like a good place for a new manned landing mission but until we have the sls or some other method to lob a crew there to stay for a while we will not no for sure.

Void · 2016-12-20 21:53:42

Well thanks for a reply at all, and it seem sensible to me.

It seems to me that Mars is being discovered to have been or even be more like Earth than was supposed.
Similarly, the Moon is more like the Mars we were led to believe was true.

I would like to leave options open. Depending on technological capabilities that might emerge, we might see a future where it makes sense to just go to Mars, or go to the Moon to support going to Mars. And even though few here would like it, the Moon could be a consolation prize if somehow the powers that be refuse to sponsor a process to inhabit and further explore Mars

My understanding from the readings would be the next step to define the lava tubes would be a space probe with ground penetrating radar.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-21 21:07:42)

Antius · 2016-12-21 13:41:50

I wonder if we could pressurise these lava tubes? 1 bar of pressure is the equivalent of about 25m of rock on the moon. So if these tubes are more than about 50m underground they could be pressurised to 1 bar.

elderflower · 2016-12-21 17:24:18

You don't need one bar, Antius. Half that would be sufficient, I expect. You would have about the same partial pressure of Oxygen as you would find on earth at a moderate altitude (maybe 2000- 3000metres ASL) and the rest would be buffer gas such as Nitrogen or Argon with traces of CO2. Therefore you can reduce the burial depth required of your habitable lava tube by about half.
You would need to seal the interior surfaces as rocks tend to have cracks and porosity.

Antius · 2016-12-21 17:31:12

elderflower wrote:

You don't need one bar, Antius. Half that would be sufficient, I expect. You would have about the same partial pressure of Oxygen as you would find on earth at a moderate altitude (maybe 2000- 3000metres ASL) and the rest would be buffer gas such as Nitrogen or Argon with traces of CO2. Therefore you can reduce the burial depth required of your habitable lava tube by about half.
You would need to seal the interior surfaces as rocks tend to have cracks and porosity.

Some kind of wall paper perhaps? Or maybe vacuum plating with a low melting point substance like aluminium?

Void · 2016-12-21 21:09:20

So far, I see nothing but good ideas. That's nice, plenty of room for various notions. I like that.

I will throw a few brain drizzle ideas into the common pot, not intended to detract from previous ideas.

Caution on excessive optimism makes sense elderflower. Foil metal wallpaper also makes sense Antius. ++

Here we have an example of northern instincts to adaptiveness:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll
The dreaded and most evil Kingons err... Russians are an example of those who would follow such a sinister plan!

That is actually an representation of solving the problem of occupying a resource rewarding environment which also is hostile to tropical human habitation methods.

It has been mentioned that the optimal habitat air pressure can be reduced from 1 bar. Good.

It appears from the articles that we could hope that indeed these lava tubes have a wide and high dimension and we suppose a long dimention, very significantly long. This suggests partition of the length, and qualifying the segments for purpose, according to assessed capability.

So if we assess a particular "Segment" of the length to have particularly good qualities, how could we hope to isolate it from the inferior segments?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam

Quote:

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam

You offered this Antius in another topic:

Timbrel vaulting.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/11/ … aults.html
Multiple layers of tiles glued together, are immensely strong.

I repeat it so often because I see it as such a worthy answer to so many needs!

So, what if a lava tube could be assessed per suggested segment as to quality, and then partitioned by way of gravity arch air dam, and that dam done with timbrel technique?

Then for that favored partition, a liner of thick metal foil, so as to provide a probability of protection for the investment into a optimal pressurization for a selected purpose suiting the needs of humans and their robots?

So partitions, what types?
Well elderflower suggests a minimal healthy pressurization for humans with O2, N2/Argon. Good.
And I can suggest that a partition with a fill of CO2, would allow floating spinning synthetic gravity habitats per speculation of how to inhabit the skies of Venus.
Then it seems reasonable that for segments that cannot hold a large pressure it might be contemplated to have low pressure agriculture. RobertDyke has indicated that studies suggest that 100 mb is quite sufficient for very useful agriculture. Those low pressures are also rather intimidating for the notion of human workers. But still it can be considered.
Beyond that very low pressure segments would serve as portals to the Lunar surface activities that it would make sense to support and would be required to gather energy to port into the high quality segments.

Enough for now I think. Glad if I could have modifying thinking on this.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-21 21:41:31)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-21 22:37:23

Void wrote:

http://phys.org/news/2016-04-grail-lava-tubes-moon.html
http://www.universetoday.com/128208/buried-lave-tubes/
Quote:
Where the Marius Hole is located, the team spotted a gravitational signature that was indicative of a subsurface cavity. But that was not all. Distributed across the Moon’s near side, Sood and his colleagues also noted that the GRAIL data indicated at least ten signatures that could resemble lava tubes. All are located near the dark areas left by ancient volcanic seas, with some measuring more than 100 km long and several kilometers wide.
Naturally, there are some doubts as to whether or not the readings are indicative of actual lava tubes. As the team indicated in their paper – “Detection of Buried Empty Lunar Lava Tubes Using Grail Gravity Data“, which contains the findings they presented at the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference – the structures they were looking for were similar or smaller in scale than the resolution of the gravity data.
As a result, it was difficult to determine whether or not the signals they spotted were in fact a sign of an underground recess, or a numerical artifact in the data. Because of this, proving the existence of stable, subsurface lava tubes will require a next-generation mission, one that has instruments which will be able to penetrate the lunar surface and confirm the presence of recesses.
So if ground penetrating radar confirms this, then rather big lava tubes to place cities in on the Moon.
I have often wondered what you would use to enhance lava tubes, but Antius might have provided something in a another topic.
Timbrel vaulting.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/11/ … aults.html
Multiple layers of tiles glued together, are immensely strong.
Glue on the Moon could be a problem relative to Mars, but I believe that there is CO and Hydrogen in the shadowed polar craters, or so it is thought.
And if you really want to do something interesting, you could fill them with ice covered lakes! (I need to do that).
Really, if that was useful, you could possibly get more ice from other locations and crash it on the Moon in the night side, much if it will not vaporize. Perhaps from Ceres?
But if you are going to have a lava tube habitat, why not seal it and have a temperate farmland in it. Pretty far fetched, but then again, if you did have a fraction of habitable land on the Moon err.. Under it's surface, it would really make it more valuable/habitable/useful.
As for the gravity question, I think Hypertoobs modified could offer a solution to keep humans healthy.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-theoretica … .html#nRlv
Quote:
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800 … ticals.jpg
The city of Philadelphia is shown inside a theoretical lunar lava tube. A Purdue University team of researchers explored whether lava tubes more than 1 kilometer wide could remain structurally stable on the moon. Credit: Purdue University/courtesy of David Blair
I could have added this to a "Moon" related thread, but you do that if you want to.

You know this is about the size of a bernal sphere.

Actually two bernal spheres placed side by side, as the diameter I believe is 500 meters. So a colony of 10,000 could fit within a lava tube, we can then place solar panels on the roof and power some artificial lighting within the cave. We would need a larger area covered with solar panels than the area to be artificially illuminated. A polar location would be ideal, as we wouldn't need energy storage, and we can turn on and off he lights to suit us. the hard part would be producing the solar panels and artificial lighting equipment, and of course creating the atmosphere to pressurize the whole thing.

Antius · 2016-12-22 06:44:12

Will reply in more detail later.

Timbrel vaulting is strong and typically used for floors and ceilings to avoid the need for wood. One potential problem is labour intensity. Not such a big problem on Earth, but maybe a problem on the moon if you have to glue tiles together one by one in a space suit at an EVA cost of millions of dollars per hour. I wonder if this is something that can be done telerobotically, using sintered regolith tiles? That way, the controller can be a mason sitting in a booth back on Earth - $100/hour instead of $1million/hour. Alternatively, maybe it can be assembled in modular sections in a pressure dome and then slotted into place on the wall. It wouldn't be difficult to build a machine that could do that.

What would we use as a bonding agent on the dry, airless moon? Sulphur is an option. It is at least more abundant on the surface of the moon than other volatiles. Not as easy on the moon as on Mars, as the substantial Martian atmosphere has enough vapour pressure to prevent it from subliming. On the moon, you would need to paint over it with something. Maybe vacuum plate the whole thing with aluminium when finished. It would give it a wonderful metallic shine.

Another option for sealing up the lava tube is a gravity stabilised dam. Basically a big pile of dust and rubble that relies on friction with the ground to prevent it buckling under the pressure. Some big dams (Aswan, I think) are gravity stabilised soil. Maybe the same thing could work on the moon? You would need a lot more material than for timbrel vaulting, but it would not need to be manufactured as such, just collected and dumped in place. For small dams, this might be a better option. For really huge tunnels hundreds of metres high, you would need timbrel techniques or something similar.

Timbrel techniques would definitely have a strong advantages over other when it comes to internal structures on the moon. The raw materials are available everywhere at low energy cost. It avoids the need for steel girders in spanning roofs and floors. Another option on the airless moon may be to plasma spray molten regolith onto a surface, essentially 3D printing a tile vault. Lunar regoliths are known to be sticky and abrasive. Maybe something as simple as compressing it into a mould would produce a brick with modest compressive strength. Discussion to be had.

Last edited by Antius (2016-12-22 06:59:52)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-22 09:52:31

I think an entire base can be built on the Moon telerobotically, it would be cheaper than sending a man in a spacesuit.

Void · 2016-12-22 14:44:19

Antius, you suggested compressed blocks. I am wondering if materials from which O2 has been extracted, could have a property of Vacuum welding, if under vacuum and compressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_welding
Of course they are not metal, but perhaps in a reduced state, they might exhibit some of those properties.

So, perhaps the soil would be heated, Hydrogen would be run through the soil to extract O2, and then the material would be subjected to a vacuum by pumping out the resulting H20, and then end of process, a compression under vacuum of a heated soil into a block?

But I like your 3D printing idea, and the fill soil idea. Perhaps combinations of all of them would best work.

Perhaps a curved wall of compressed blocks, with loose fill behind it on the lower pressure side. Then 3D print a coating on the side of the block wall which is to hold pressure. Then finally as a extra safety margin, a foil against the 3D printed surface. This would be less labor intense, and would not demand as much higher quality materials.

Similar to that as a starter habitation, I wonder about a smaller enclosure composed of a cylinder of compressed blocks reaching from the floor to the ceiling. I am thinking that that would need to be restrained by loops of a cord/cable around the outer circumference. Perhaps flying buttresses used as well to hold the wall up against an internal higher pressure? Or a berm. Or straps, flying buttresses and berm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_buttress

And I agree with both of you that as much telepresence and AI automation should be used as possible, to reduce the need for expensive humans, at least until a self paying habitat has been established.

I also would see the use of a cylinder as suggested above to house something like what Tom suggested.

Actually two bernal spheres placed side by side, as the diameter I believe is 500 meters. So a colony of 10,000 could fit within a lava tube, we can then place solar panels on the roof and power some artificial lighting within the cave.

If such a cylinder chamber were filled with CO2 at ~1bar, then it could be contemplated to float a habitat inside it, if the habitat contains lifting gasses. That's a bit of a problem because N2 is going to be hard to come by. But then elderchild already suggested a lower pressure situation.
I think Argon might be available from wells on the Moon? Not sure.

https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/ladee- … ervations/

Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS): An Apollo surface experiment identified argon-40 (40Ar) more than 40 years ago. More recently, the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), a far-UV spectrometer on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, has detected argon emissions, but with much lower density. This suggests argon changes with time. Now, NMS has positively identified 40Ar and has mapped out its diurnal variations. The NMS also has detected neon-20, a solar wind constituent, as well as helium. These species are all noble gases, but they each behave differently at the moon: argon freezes out on the cold lunar nightside, then springs off the surface in a burst at lunar dawn. Helium is not permanently bound to the moon, but is lost to space over the hot lunar dayside, where temperatures can approach 248 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius). Helium is re-supplied to the moon by the solar wind. This supply is cut off and the abundance on the moon rapidly dwindles when the moon is in Earth’s geomagnetic tail.

Two questions about argon: 1) Is 40Ar safe to breath with an O2 mix? If it freezes out in the lunar night shouldn't it have collected in the lunar polar cold traps?

Another issue about a floating spinning habitat in a 1 bar or 1/2 bar atmosphere is the limitations imposed by the speed of sound. Can't exceed that, I am sure.

But if you have your spinning habitat in a containment such as a upright cylinder as described, the air inside should rotate possibly in layers like an onion skin. Don't know how much that can be engineered in, but if so, then the energy losses will be reduced, since the relative speed of the air experienced on the skin of the spinning object will be a fraction of the relative speed between the spinning object and the stone cylinder wall of the cylinder containment.

Should such a synthetic gravity device be made, perhaps the interior atmosphere of the habitat could be a mix off O2, Argon, Helium, and N2. I don't know how that would effect human health and vocalizations. If it is a problem then the floating spinning habitat might just have compartments with helium as desired to provide extra lift. O2, Argon, and N2 would be lifting gasses as well of course.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-22 15:10:29)

elderflower · 2016-12-22 17:02:18

Argon is safe to breathe with adequate oxygen mixed in. In air separation it tends to condense with the oxygen, not with the nitrogen, so no separation is going to occur in your habitat. I mentioned it as a potential buffer gas because of its relative abundance in Mars' atmosphere, where it would almost certainly be used as part of the breathing gas mixture. On the moon it is likely that breathing buffer gas will be Nitrogen imported from earth.

Oldfart1939 · 2016-12-22 20:08:31

Argon is a totally inert "Noble gas," and hence, has no harmful effects if used as a buffer gas. In chemical labs, it's actually preferred to Nitrogen due to it's density--heavier than air. It "stays put," in a reactor for exclusion of the reactive components of air--moisture and Oxygen. Here on Earth, it's significantly more expensive than Nitrogen. All we need is that essential 20% Oxygen in our breathing gas.

Void · 2016-12-22 22:28:23

Good to know. It may be possible to harvest Argon on the Moon. From the tenuous atmosphere, cold traps, or even drilling might produce it. But I fear that it might not be that much. But who knows. As for Nitrogen from Earth that might not be that bad, I believe it will be possible to extract it from the uppermost atmosphere to orbit.

RobertDyck · 2016-12-22 23:40:09

0.9340% of air on Earth is argon. It's obviously Ok to breathe because you're breathing it right now. Navy divers use it to dilute oxygen for extremely deep dives. You can only breath so much partial pressure of oxygen. And too much nitrogen produces nitrogen narcosis. So to counter water pressure at extreme depths, they add argon. There's a limit to how much argon you can breathe too, but Mars doesn't have to worry about high pressure. Actually, to dive even deeper, Navy divers can add helium as well. When they reach the limit of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, they can increase pressure further with yet another gas. Quad gas mix is really pushing the limit. They have to be extremely careful, and extremely technical to survive that without injury. Once you pressurize your body that much, you have to be very careful to depressurize, and do so without producing bubbles in your blood. Bubbles will block blood flow in capillaries (small blood vessels), causing tissues that depend on those blood vessels to be starved of oxygen and food. That can cause tissue damage, commonly called the Bends.

I had suggested a tri-gas mix for a Mars settlement. Use oxygen plus nitrogen and argon. The idea is to keep the nitrogen:argon ratio the same as Mars atmosphere. That makes it trivially easy to harvest. And keep partial pressure of nitrogen and argon at or below the pressure for zero pre-breathe time to decompress to suit pressure.

Earth atmosphere has other trace gasses. These are all noble gasses, they don't react with anything. That makes them colourless, odourless, and completely safe to breathe. Neon, xenon, and krypton. Mars atmosphere also has these. My proposed method of harvesting diluent gas is to freeze out CO2 as dry ice. That's colder that water ice, so will freeze out all water. Not intended, but will happen. And a rhodium catalyst to react carbon monoxide with oxygen. Mars atmosphere doesn't have much oxygen, but more than carbon monoxide, so all carbon monoxide will react to form CO2. Doing this in the same vessel that freeze CO2 into dry ice will remove that as well. Mars has some ozone, but the rhodium catalyst will decompose it to molecular oxygen: 2 O3 -> 3 O2. There will be some CO2 gas left, but most will have frozen out. Remaining CO2 can be removed by cabin sorbent scrubbers. But this means trace gasses in Mars atmosphere will remain in diluent gas for habitats. But that's the same noble gasses as Earth's atmosphere: neon, xenon, krypton.

Don't know where you would find argon on the Moon. Argon's melting temperature is -185.848°C, triple point is 83.8058 K, 68.89 kPa. Moon's surface temperature varies from +123°C in sunlight to -153°C on the "dark" side. However the bottom of polar craters that never get sunlight can reach −238°C. So a "cold trap" is the only place you would find argon. But seriously, how much argon do you expect to find there? Water can migrate to a cold trap because it boils in sunlight, freezes in dark. But argon is gas all the time, everywhere but the cold trap. So expect the vast majority of argon to escape into space. So a "cold trap" is not an effective trap for argon.

elderflower · 2016-12-23 06:06:46

We will have to look out for Radon concentration in our residual gas on Mars. It may contain some Radon, which is radioactive, although I expect most of that to be removed with the CO2.

Antius · 2016-12-23 07:02:46

Argon is a decay product of potassium-40. I expect that there are pockets of radiogenic gas (argon and helium) on the moon. It is a case of finding them and drilling into them. Argox is a safe breathing gas up to pressures of 3 bar, which is adequate for space purposes. One problem with argon is that it doesn't have the heat capacity of nitrogen. For fire suppression purposes it might be better to pressurise to >1bar and keep oxygen partial pressure at 200mbar.

Don't know what the purpose of a bernal sphere is. The great thing about a lava tube is that you don't need 100,000 tonnes of metal to build a big habitat. Lava tubes are cheap and can be settled with minimal resources.

Last edited by Antius (2016-12-23 07:23:01)

RobertDyck · 2016-12-23 13:46:03

Antius wrote:

Don't know what the purpose of a bernal sphere is.

The purpose of a Bernal sphere is to live in space. Not on a celestial body, but actually in space. The sphere uses rotation to produce artificial gravity so can have any gravity. The design intent is the outer diameter will produce 1G gravity, as you go up the sides of the sphere gravity will reduce. All designs for a Bernal sphere show greenhouses as inflated tube rings attached to the end of the sphere. Those greenhouses have smaller diameter than the sphere, so will have less artificial gravity. The whole thing rotates at the same rate, so a simple door connects sections.

Ideal is to build a Bernal sphere close to an asteroid field. Mine asteroids for materials, build the sphere as living space close to those resources. It was designed by Mr. Bernal, hence the name. A Bernal sphere has more usable area inside than an O'Neil colony, designed by Mr. O'Neil. An O'Neil colony is a cylinder with 50% area just window to allow light in. A Bernal sphere has much less window area. An O'Neil colony uses flat mirrors outside the windows, while an Bernal sphere uses curved mirrors to concentrate light through narrow windows in the sphere, then a "diffuser" in the centre of the sphere distributes the light to the inner surface. And O'Neil proposed a truly huge colony, while a Bernal sphere as proposed is still huge but not as big as an O'Neil colony.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-12-24 01:16:56)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-23 22:13:58

RobertDyck wrote:

Antius wrote:
Don't know what the purpose of a bernal sphere is.
The purpose of a Bernal sphere is to live in space. Not on a celestial body, but actually in space. The sphere uses rotation to produce artificial gravity so can have any gravity. The design intent is the outer diameter will produce 1G gravity, as you go up the sides of the sphere gravity will reduce. All designs for a Bernal sphere show greenhouses as inflated tube rings attached to the end of the sphere. Those greenhouses have smaller diameter than the sphere, so will have less artificial gravity. The whole thing rotates at the same rate, so a simple door connects sections.
Ideal is to build a Bernal sphere close to an asteroid field. Mine asteroids for materials, build the sphere as living space close to those resources. It was designed by Mr. Bernal, hence the name. A Bernal sphere has more usable area inside than an O'Neil colony, designed by Mr. O'Neil. An O'Neil colony is a cylinder with 50% area just window to allow light in. A Bernal sphere has much less window area. An O'Neil colony uses flat mirrors outside the windows, while an Bernal sphere uses curved mirrors to concentrate light through narrow windows in the sphere, then a "diffuser" in the centre of the sphere distributes the light to the inner surface. And O'Neil proposed a truly huge colony, while a Bernal sphere as proposed is still hung but not as big as an O'Neil colony.

Think of the Moon as a giant space station made out of rock. The Moon has more material to build things out of than the entire asteroid belt. The Moon is in space. Just as in the Bernal Sphere, you can use curved mirrors to concentrate sunlight through small openings in the Moon's surface.

If you buried in within the Moon's surface, you could use curved mirrors to reflect sunlight through the exposed windows and illuminate the interior just as in a free floating space colony. If it is located near one of the poles, Sunlight will be just as available. I'm thinking that we can turn this diagram sideways and bury it within the Moon up to the top window. We could then decide whether we want to spin it for greater than Lunar gravity or leave in non-spinning and have people live on the hemisphere opposite the exposed windows.

Probably burying this at the summit of a mountain would work best, because then we can dump the regolith we excavate down the sides of the mountain without blocking out access to Sunlight 24-hours a day, so we can have daylight hours whenever it is convenient for humans.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-12-23 22:16:04)

Void · 2016-12-23 23:25:36

OK, per Antius and Argon. Agreed, perhaps can be drilled for.

Another possibility is that it being ionized by sunlight and in the presence of a local magnetic field, can possibly concentrations be found? What I think I know about it is that it freezes out in the lunar night, and might collect to some extent collect in cold traps. It also does not hang around too long, but gets swept away by the solar wind mostly.

So I would be looking for local concentrations caused by local magnetic fields.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ … f_the_Moon

And now I will emphasize that I think a lot of you have a lot of trouble with this kind of thinking because in spaceflight succeed, likely > proceed or succeed, we don't know, abort, give up.

A sort of binary process which is quite appropriate, in many cases, where you must fear that your rockets will blow up or malfunction in a manner that provides a miserable death to the humans involved. However here, we are contemplating a new tool box, which is related to habitation of the Moon, and specifically facilitating the habitation of the Moon with tools associated with lava tubes, or tools which would make lava tube habitation a more reasonable thing to contemplate.

So, if it becomes discovered as true that certain parts of a local magnetic field on the Moon, amplify the presence of bouncing molecules of substances desired, what machines might we try to use to amplify that even more?

I will propose a machine, but I will get quite annoyed if I encounter a "It didn't work so lets just give up attitude". That sort of thinking is worthy of the aftermath of a falling civilization, the population selectively breaded towards a human eat human attitude. Not impressed, not so ever. Ya, my language skills a bit challenged, but really that is evidence that my blood line has not been processed so far as to have the linguistics is everything that matters malfunction that identifies the verbal and violent.

So, I propose a capacitor with one exposed electrical plate, where the exospheric nature molecules including Argon will be expected to impinge. We do hope that a place where natural magnetic forces have concentrated these molecules exists associated with a local magnetic variation.

So then we first used a natural magnetic field to give us an amplification, and then we hope to use an electrical force to capture these molecules to a exposed plate of an capacitor device, hoping that the electrical force will hold a significant amount of the molecules to it.

I am going to stop there, I have at least two options to further concentrate the molecules.

Not sure how useful this whole process is. After all Argon being inert, isn't the amount we have limited and I suspect that it does not have a drain. So, in reality how much can be captured for our subpart, lava tube habitats? I am in a quandary as I do not know.

But I feel that I am asking useful questions. At some point however evidence has to be provided before I might choose to verbalize the subsequent possible questions.

Phew! Yikes!

Just looking for evidence/measurements/possibilities.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-23 23:50:45)

Void · 2016-12-23 23:59:51

Synthetic gravity on the Moon?

Well, two conflicting methods come to my mind.

1) Pressurized flotation in a CO2 atmosphere held in a containment on the Moon. Perhaps ~1 or less bars of N2/Argon/O2 mix inside the floating device. A spinning device in such a thick atmosphere to float in, must adhere to the limits of the speed of sound. My intuition suggests, that laminar flow could be of assistance here. I recall a story that if you can spin an egg sufficiently it can stand on it's end due to gyroscopic effects, the fluids within having a parallel laminar flow effect, or to say that the outer edge of the shell which is spinning and floating is not abruptly exposed to the whole differential spin, but is sheltered by a viscous gradiation of spin speed, therefore reducing energy losses, and the risk of exceeding the speed of sound.

2) Hyperloop flotation on a thin film of relatively pressurized air under the airframe of something like a hyperloop travel device. The whole tube on average having a pressurization we would regard as a vacuum relative to the ~1 bar pressurization we typically experience.

I might anticipate that a hyperloop device could be made circular to induce synthetic gravity in it's traveling parts, where the curvature and speed are sufficient for it.

So, can we hope to find a compromise between 1 & 2, or just go with one or the other? Or is there some other notion of generating synthetic gravity on the Moon?

I am thinking flat disk with air table lubrication, but still flotation in a CO2 atmosphere. But I am not sure where practicality can be found. It is worth exploration/consideration in my opinion.

As for a flat disk device, it would be possible to have seals, and to be able to walk down a tunnel from the Moon gravity environment into the spinning device while fully pressurized and safe, shirt sleeve. That is the desire anyway. And then entering the hub to go to the perimeter of the device to experience what synthetic gravity + Moon gravity is required for better human health.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2016-12-24 00:08:05)

elderflower · 2016-12-24 13:06:56

I'm not sure why you would need artificial gravity on the moon. Crew rotation back to earth is practicable at any time and people can do 6 months at a stretch in zero gravity.

Terraformer · 2016-12-24 13:44:50

Not if they're colonists...

elderflower · 2016-12-24 13:54:21

That's a long way off and I shall be fertilizer. Happy Xmas.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-12-24 14:48:06

elderflower wrote:

I'm not sure why you would need artificial gravity on the moon. Crew rotation back to earth is practicable at any time and people can do 6 months at a stretch in zero gravity.

What percentage of the US population rotates back to the UK every six months? I think the idea is to develop the Moon as the "8th continent". Have houses, schools, white picket fences. If we can build an O'Neill colony within the crust of the Moon and rotate it, it would be almost indistinguishable from living on Earth or in free space. Once can set up solar panels along the sides of the bernal sphere encrusted in the Moon, the bernal can rotate within its socket. the socket can be made from a crater that is 500 meters deep and wide. Unlike the bernal rotating free in space, we don't need to move material off the Moon's surface to build it. If we rotate the bernal perpendicular to the Moon's gravity with the north hemisphere up and the South down, then most of the population would live in the southern hemisphere of the bernal with the resultant gravity, centrifugal force plus the Moon's equal to 1-g.

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