Moon base?

[Mad hatters in jeans]

I imagine they desperately wanted to but when they came to the box marked 'State your reasons for wanting this project to be undertaken' they spent a long time scratching their heads and being unable to get past '..because it would be awesome' as a response.

more land, assuming we can generate an artificial atmosphere and artificial gravity, is a good reason in my eyes

Das lebensraum on der moon!

[Sociobiology]

This method was proposed for mars years ago, and only requires a few meters there, that and you can manufacture regular concrete on the surface easily.

Manufacturing concrete on Mars?
(Googles)

That sounds easier than I would have guessed!

I don't suppose you have a copy of “Concrete - A Practical Construction Material for Mars” in pdf?

Concrete on the Moon sounds more challenging though, but with no atmosphere or storms piling dust is more practical...

although limestone is most common, gypsum can be used just as easily to make Portland cement. carbon monoxide is the other ingredient, both are common on mars.
polycarboxylate ether can be produced from martian regolith allowing the creation of HEM concrete which is ideal for martian conditions.
Sulfur based concrete would work even better on mars, and is just as easy to come by, but are not as strong.

[Sociobiology]

The moon is a chunk of the earth that was thrown into earths orbit after a meteor hit the earth millions and trillions of years ago...their could be oil or gas heck even iron or gold or any other natural resource...heck even Blue fire!!!! (Blue fire is a gas that is drilled by the Gazprom oil co. the store front is in my forums some where)

Umm seeing as the moon split off well before Life really took off. There's no way that you could drill for oil on the moon and find anything.

thank you.
lunar fuel production could open the way to asteroidal mining.

[Holerad]

The moon is a chunk of the earth that was thrown into earths orbit after a meteor hit the earth millions and trillions of years ago...their could be oil or gas heck even iron or gold or any other natural resource...heck even Blue fire!!!! (Blue fire is a gas that is drilled by the Gazprom oil co. the store front is in my forums some where)

Surprisingly there was 1.6% gold (Au) in the LCROSS ejecta.

However high transportation costs would make mining lunar gold, diamonds or pure crack cocaine uneconomic.

The water found at the lunar poles is more exciting. As I've mentioned this is potential orbital propellant which is much closer to earth's orbits than propellant on earth's surface. And orbital propellant depots could reduce transportation costs considerably.

Here's the LCROSS ejecta:

N 6.6000%
CO 5.7000%
H2O 5.5000%
Zn 3.1000%
V 2.4000%
Ca 1.6000%
Au 1.6000%
Mn 1.3000%
Hg 1.2000%
Co 1.0000%
H2S 0.9213%
Fe 0.5000%
Mg 0.4000%
NH3 0.3317%
Cl 0.2000%
SO2 0.1755%
C2H4 0.1716%
CO2 0.1194%
C 0.0900%
Sc 0.0900%
CH3OH 0.0853%
S 0.0600%
B 0.0400%
P 0.0400%
CH4 0.0366%
O 0.0200%
Si 0.0200%
As 0.0200%
Al 0.0090%
OH 0.0017%

And the Chandrayaan-1 probe found what seem to be massive ice deposits.

[AiliailiA]

Manufacturing concrete on Mars?
(Googles)

That sounds easier than I would have guessed!

I don't suppose you have a copy of “Concrete - A Practical Construction Material for Mars” in pdf?

Concrete on the Moon sounds more challenging though, but with no atmosphere or storms piling dust is more practical...

although limestone is most common, gypsum can be used just as easily to make Portland cement. carbon monoxide is the other ingredient, both are common on mars.

Limestone needs either birdshit or seashells to form. Gypsum, while used in cement, by itself forms plaster ... a much weaker cement.

A coincidence I found in wikipedia:

Gypsum occurs in nature as flattened and often twinned crystals and transparent cleavable masses called selenite. Selenite contains no significant selenium; rather both substances were named from the Ancient Greek word for the Moon.

polycarboxylate ether can be produced from martian regolith allowing the creation of HEM concrete which is ideal for martian conditions.
Sulfur based concrete would work even better on mars, and is just as easy to come by, but are not as strong.

Polycarboxylate? Isn't that a resin?

And still with the mars.

[Set the Unbound]

However high transportation costs would make mining lunar gold, diamonds or pure crack cocaine uneconomic.

This, but not just the transportation costs. Most of our mining, refining and smelting technologies absolutely depend on access to liquid water, an atmosphere, and gravity. The Moon has the last one, but otherwise its pretty unattractive even if "antigrav transport" was invented tomorrow

The water found at the lunar poles is more exciting. As I've mentioned this is potential orbital propellant which is much closer to earth's orbits than propellant on earth's surface. And orbital propellant depots could reduce transportation costs considerably.

And the Chandrayaan-1 probe found what seem to be massive ice deposits.

^ This, though, very much

[AiliailiA]

However high transportation costs would make mining lunar gold, diamonds or pure crack cocaine uneconomic.

This, but not just the transportation costs. Most of our mining, refining and smelting technologies absolutely depend on access to liquid water, an atmosphere, and gravity.

Arc furnaces for aluminium though. Also vacuum smelting.

[Sociobiology]

although limestone is most common, gypsum can be used just as easily to make Portland cement. carbon monoxide is the other ingredient, both are common on mars.

Limestone needs either birdshit or seashells to form. Gypsum, while used in cement, by itself forms plaster ... a much weaker cement.

A coincidence I found in wikipedia:

Gypsum occurs in nature as flattened and often twinned crystals and transparent cleavable masses called selenite. Selenite contains no significant selenium; rather both substances were named from the Ancient Greek word for the Moon.

polycarboxylate ether can be produced from martian regolith allowing the creation of HEM concrete which is ideal for martian conditions.
Sulfur based concrete would work even better on mars, and is just as easy to come by, but are not as strong.

Polycarboxylate? Isn't that a resin?

And still with the mars.

I'm just repying, ask about the moon if you want me to talk about it.
polycarboxylate is a metal ion catalysized polymer.

raw gypsum gives you plaster.
Processing identical to limestone (using carbon monoxide) gives you Portland cement, raw gypsum is also an additive used in production

the "although limestone is more common" was meant to imply it could not be used on Mars.

[Set the Unbound]

This, but not just the transportation costs. Most of our mining, refining and smelting technologies absolutely depend on access to liquid water, an atmosphere, and gravity.

Arc furnaces for aluminium though. Also vacuum smelting.

I agree, those two refining techniques should be able to be adapted easily enough.
Frasch-process mining of sulphur and any other bulk low-melting-point resources should transfer well, too.

Pity about the thousands of other processes that won't, though. Froth-flotation of copper? Cyanide-leaching of gold?

All our tech from the last 10,000 years is designed to work only on planets like ours with an atmosphere, liquid water and gravity. Adapting and retrofitting technologies to work on a planet like Mars is probably a lot more practical than trying to build an industrial society on the Moon. Really challenging and ambitious, don't get me wrong, but easier than the Moon.

Lunar water for propellant, OTOH, Holerad has me completely sold on
That's what we should be looking at building a base for...

[Holerad]

This, but not just the transportation costs. Most of our mining, refining and smelting technologies absolutely depend on access to liquid water, an atmosphere, and gravity. The Moon has the last one, but otherwise its pretty unattractive even if "antigrav transport" was invented tomorrow

If we do mine propellant on the moon, we'd need materials for maintenance. Those materials we could mine locally, could save on importing materials from earth.

One of the pressing needs for a lunar propellant mine is energy. The moon has lots of aluminum which can be useful to make mirrors for concentrating solar energy. On earth alumina is dissolved in a molten salt and aluminum is torn from oxygen by electrolysis.

So I was happy to see some chlorine in the LCROSS ejecta. Some halogens to form salts might be useful for mining other stuff than propellant.

[

The water found at the lunar poles is more exciting. As I've mentioned this is potential orbital propellant which is much closer to earth's orbits than propellant on earth's surface. And orbital propellant depots could reduce transportation costs considerably.

And the Chandrayaan-1 probe found what seem to be massive ice deposits.

^ This, though, very much

[Set the Unbound]

If we do mine propellant on the moon, we'd need materials for maintenance. Those materials we could mine locally, could save on importing materials from earth.

One of the pressing needs for a lunar propellant mine is energy. The moon has lots of aluminum which can be useful to make mirrors for concentrating solar energy. On earth alumina is dissolved in a molten salt and aluminum is torn from oxygen by electrolysis.

So I was happy to see some chlorine in the LCROSS ejecta. Some halogens to form salts might be useful for mining other stuff than propellant.

I can see a very good cost/efficiency/economic argument for lunar water/propellant, and for lunar rock aggregate and even concrete maybe.

But can you imagine the cost of locating suitable grades of bauxite, reengineering an entire mining, refining, smelting and manufacturing plant complex for hard vacuum and low gravity, and then shipping the complex to the Moon, and then assembling and burying it to keep it safe from meteorites, cosmic rays and thermal stresses of the surface...

Given the comparatively modest aluminum requirements of a propellant mine, the payback period on that investment would be centuries, if not millenia.

And then you have to maintain the aluminum complex with parts from Earth, and all this for a settlement with expensive overheads from hard vacuum, thermal stresses on the surface, cosmic rays and meteorites, and no hope of achieving economic self-sufficiency even in bulk commodities like food.

Please, no; lets keep the Moon an Abu Dhabi-style fuel-mining outpost, and do the industrial colonization effort somewhere more sustainable...

[Holerad]

All our tech from the last 10,000 years is designed to work only on planets like ours with an atmosphere, liquid water and gravity.

At 3 millibars, the Martian atmosphere is what most would call a hard vacuum. There's no liquid water. Mars has more gravity but the moon has enough to employ the mining techniques that use gravity.

So in those regards, there's not much difference between mining on Mars or the moon.

But can you imagine the cost of locating suitable grades of bauxite, reengineering an entire mining, refining, smelting and manufacturing plant complex for hard vacuum and low gravity, and then shipping the complex to the Moon, and then assembling and burying it to keep it safe from meteorites, cosmic rays and thermal stresses of the surface...

Temperatures at the almost constantly illuminated polar plateaus vary by 20 degrees centigrade, some of the mildest swings around.

Your various objections would be more believable if I hadn't seen you argue for a 20 giga watt nuclear thermal rocket on a comet, along with a Frasch mine to transport the comet's reaction mass to the rocket's chambers. That sort of infrastructure on a comet would make a lunar metal mine look like a back yard dog house.

[Sjovenia]

Mining on a comet? thats impossible!

[Norstal]

Your various objections would be more believable if I hadn't seen you argue for a 20 giga watt nuclear thermal rocket on a comet, along with a Frasch mine to transport the comet's reaction mass to the rocket's chambers. That sort of infrastructure on a comet would make a lunar metal mine look like a back yard dog house.

If anyone argued for that, chances are they smoked too many marijuana.

[Set the Unbound]

I was quite serious and sober, and my reasons are laid out in several Mars threads, with supporting links.

This is not the place to repeat them though!

@Holerad - true about thermal stability at the lunar poles, but that doesnt begin to address my other stated concerns about industrial colonisation of the Moon

[AiliailiA]

Rather than mining metals on the moon OR transporting everything needed from Earth direct, how about taking the already refined metal from space-junk which has already had so much energy put into it? There is aluminium, gold and even solar panels going to waste up there.

Apparently there is a parking orbit outside the Geosynchronous orbit. Some call it the Graveyard. How about some grave robbing?

[Senestrum]

Your various objections would be more believable if I hadn't seen you argue for a 20 giga watt nuclear thermal rocket on a comet, along with a Frasch mine to transport the comet's reaction mass to the rocket's chambers. That sort of infrastructure on a comet would make a lunar metal mine look like a back yard dog house.

Totally.

If you're going nuclear you should just go with Orion as is right and proper.

[Sjovenia]

Orion the stars? Why thats a long way away from here (here meaning earth)

[Senestrum]

No, Orion as in the spaceship that flies around by lighting off strings of nukes under its ass: