OTish - 3D printing and moonbases ...

[Jethro_uk]

As someone who has a faint memory of the fuss of the original moon landing, I caught first part of "The Sky At Night" moon special.

Intrigued by the idea of an inflatable moonbase then covered in a (presumably) ceramic layer created by 3D-printing robots in advance of a permanent manned presence.

One thing that occurred to me (not saying it hasn't others :) ) is the possibility of making the upward journey more efficient by dumping the weight of fuel and heat shielding needed for re-entry and instead fit them on the moon, where they will have been manufactured ????? In theory you could have bigger/heavier/more efficient heat tiles simply because you're not lifting them in 1G to start with ?

I wonder how easy it would be to lift a boulder from the moon and point it back to Earth for mining ?

I was a little taken aback by the presenters scepticism that 5 years seemed a short time to put men back on the moon (2024 is the stated US aim - *if* the money is made available). After all, Apollo wasn't much more than 7 years. And has laid a lot of groundwork meaning 5 years these days isn't such an ask. And that's before you consider the advances in CAD/CAM and computing in general.

Oh, to dream ...

[The Nomad]

The moon is a harsh mistress ...

or not ...

Avpx

[Andy Bennet]

Sound great but what if something goes wrong before committing to trans lunar injection and the mission is to be aborted and return to earth?

They are, to put it mildly, f***ed.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Difference is, the original landings were the result of a race and massive investment to get there. It will lack the impetus this time around.

Consider the advances made during and just prior to WWII.

[Brian Gaff]

I think to be honest they just want to beat the Chinese there. Brian

[dennis]

Or as weapon.

[Marland]

If the Americans are anything like us and we may well have copied them ,then a task that over 50 years was left to some people to just get on with it till they got a solution will now be subject to interference all the way through from others. Those others will be overseers from various other departments each with an agenda such as saving money, ensuring the right number of minorities ,ethnics, disabled, etc are given the chance to have a go, no risks to be taken in case someone gets hurt , the canteen must cater for faddy diets , time must be allowed for various religious observations, Human beings must suppress their natural instincts to be complimentary to the opposite sex as it is frowned upon. Some of these things are important others less so ,some are alright to an extent but can be taken too far ,some will conflict with each other but what you can guarantee is all those appointed to do the overseeing will consider their job is more important than those actually doing the productive stuff and to prove that will demand reams of information and proof of compliance from the latter . Which means mountains of paperwork or the electronic equivalent to be submitted most of which does nothing to progress the task in hand and will often delay it.

And as for computing,wasn?t it supposed to produce the paperless office but instead just made it easier to develop more forms?

GH

[Jethro_uk]

Vaguely what I was thinking.

Not really sure what you could make from moon dust and rock with pretty much unlimited reliable solar energy (you could focus sunlight to make a furnace ?) but if it's something that has value and can't be made on earth, moon mining could become self funding.

[Jethro_uk]

Preparation ?

have an emergency return capsule in orbit like a lifeboat ?

Raises an interesting question though. Has there ever been such an incident. I know there was a recent manned abort, but wasn't that still in the atmosphere ?

Space travel is risky. The crew of Apollo 1 were f***ed the second they sat in an oxygen filled capsule they couldn't open.

[Roger Hayter]

Didn't one of the Apollo missions have to be rescued from space? Or am I conflating fact and fiction?

[whisky-dave]

Apollo 13, I'm not sure how true to life the film was, but if it was then it was an impressive rescue. The problme is with so many parts that can go wrong you have to duplicate and have backups and a vert small part failure rate, with about 3 million parts you need a realy small rate of failure.

[dennis]

Well its reliable in that you get it for 14 days and then nothing for 14 days.

How are you storing it for the 14 day long night?

There is no such thing as the light and dark sides of the moon.

[dennis]

Apollo 13 happened, I watched it mostly live. It wasn't so much a rescue as a triumph of bodging over engineering.

Why so many common things were different on the command module and the lunar module is down to poor planning.

Like how to fit square pegs (CO2 scrubber filters) into round holes using what was on the command and lunar module.

It was really close to a disaster.

[Jethro_uk]

It was down to having two different companies fulfil the tender with no idea they would need to be interchangeable.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Back in the day, when Marconi were testing a new TV camera, in the days when you had a mobile module and a massive PSU the size of a concrete mixer, someone said 'ok it work's, switch it off and let's have tea'

No mains power switch was to be found. The two teams each though the other had that responsibility.

[tabbypurr]

rock melts. It sets as it cools.

Wild guess now: rock plus insulation?

Umm...

NT

[whisky-dave]

The main idea was to cover the habit domes as this would protect the domes from small asteriods and offer some protection from radiation (depending on the depth of cover). I don't think the present plan is to make a sort of breeze block, which could be done and use robots to put them together, perhaps that'l be stage 2.

I'd say batteries if you want to store electrical power.

It's all dark. until like the earth the suns light shines on it, then it;s still darker than most of the earth with about 4-8% reflectivity.

[Jethro_uk]

Why store it. Just have 2 arrays on either side of the shadow. Power 24/7 from one.

I'd be curious to know if the fact the moon is a vacuum at minus a lot degrees Celsius means you can get away with much thinner wires ?

Does everyone not know that ?

[Jethro_uk]

The SAN showed robots "hoovering" up moon dust and 3D printing it (somehow) over the inflated section to protect from strikes and radiation.

Presumably you only need to be dealing with pressures of 1 bar ? Hardly too onerous. Compare with the engineering needed to descend Challenger Deep .....

[dennis]

you would be surprised how many can't workout that the moon actually rotates.