Bulding a colony on the moon

[Doom]

I would build a base deep under ground, to shild from the harful rays that speed through space. How would the atomsphere by maintained, well if there is ice in the polor cap craters then that ice could be melted in a special facility located in the crater, then pipe the melt produce to the main base for refinement, to hydrgen, oxygen and feuls.

There are still many flaws, Solve these problems. And a base could become more possible.

[UniverseMan]

Interesting. I would agree with building the colony underground on the moon, that would help prevent some of the harmful radiation from reaching the inhabitants. In order to keep balance in such a system with viable oxygen and such, I would supply the station with the most advanced filtration systems on earth; plants. Plants use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and give off oxygen. And you know what's really cool about us? We breathe in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide! It's a balance actively working on Earth even as we speak. And if you honestly think about it, Earth is like a natural space station, a closed system like a moon colony would be, just on a larger scale. In such a closed system, you need balance, symbiosis.

Actually going about building the structure would be the fun part. I would start off by excavating the area where we want to put the start of our colony (assuming we don't run into any black monoliths, lol), then constructing the colony piece by piece. Making sure it's air tight, we put in a mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen (in proportional levels to Earth's mixture) into the colony. I would want the colony to be a dome shape ( the most energy efficient shape I believe) and have it be about 100 yards or the length of a football field in diameter. then from the center, I would go out 40 yards and have that be the radius of a circular area inside the dome. The inside of this circle would be furnished with many agricultural plants such as tomatoes, wheat and various fruits and vegetables. going through the middle of this would be an irrigation structure which would ensure the hydration of the plants. A recycling system would have to be developed for the evaporated water and wastewater of the colony to replace the Earth's natural water cycle. There would have to be emergency reserves and stuff like that. theres much much more that would have to be done like transportation of the supplies to the moon and other things. It would be quite an undertaking.

There you go. . .

[Pax Unum]

There have been numerous proposals regarding the habitat modules. The designs have evolved throughout the years as humankind's knowledge about the Moon has grown, and as the technological possibilities have changed. The proposed habitats range from the actual spacecraft landers or the used fuel tanks, to inflatable modules of various shapes.

Some suggest building the lunar colony underground, which would give protection from radiation and micrometeoroids. The construction of such a base would probably be more complex; one of the first machines from Earth might be a remote controlled boring machine to excavate living quarters. Once created, some sort of hardening would be necessary to avoid collapse, possibly a spray-on concrete-like substance made from available materials. A more porous insulating material also made in situ could then be applied. Inflatable self-sealing fabric habitats might then be put in place to retain air.

A possibly easier solution is to build the lunar base on the surface, and cover the modules with lunar soil. Others have put forward the idea that the lunar base could be built on the surface and protected by other means, such as improved radiation and micrometeoroid shielding. Artificial magnetic fields have been proposed as a means to provide radiation shielding for long range deep space manned missions, and it might be possible to use similar technology on a lunar colony.

Colonization of the Moon

[Waspie_Dwarf]

It's a nice idea UniverseMan, but the only attempt so far at a closed system such as this, Biosphere 2 failed. It needed an input of air and water from an outside source, however such a system could reduce the amount of consumables needed. You would need to build a very large structure to support just a few people. The other problem would be that, unless you want to have huge power cosumption, the dome housing the plants could not be underground, they need sunlight for photosynthesis.

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I've moved this thread as I felt it would be better suited to the Space & Astronomy forum.

Edited April 14, 2006 by Waspie_Dwarf

[Immortal Norway]

This is how I would have builded a colony on the moon:

The construction itself would have been of five sections:

A reaserching section, used for reaserching of the moon.

A communication/traveling section, used for traveling to and away from the moon.

A energy section, used for making electrisy

A emergency section, a small undergrond base, used for emergencies.

A central section, used for everything else.

The power should have been sunpower. The airproblem would have eighter been solved by plants or by electrisy water to destroy the hydrogen for making oxygen. If it is water on the moon I would have used that as waterreserves, but if not, the water would have comed from the Earth iself or by mixing oxygen with hydrogen. Vegetables would have been planted in a biotop. The emergency section would have a emergency generator, air capsels, water capsels and a small emergency biotop with enough vegetables to a week or so.

Edited April 14, 2006 by Norwegian Phoenix

[kryptoguy]

this is my way

1. OXYGEN where to get?

all we need is plants and animals and there we have oxygen and carbon dioxide for everybody

2. WATER

i think we cant melt the ice caps in the moon if there is cuz maybe we will flood to our death maybe we should mix oxygen and hydrogen to make water!

3. FOOD

all we need is food for atleast 7 months cuz by the time that that seven moths is over we have cows and chickes to eat, and we are going to plant rice and some stuff...

4. METEORITES

i think we need lasers (powerful lasers) that can blast those feakin stones away from our moon colony

5. RADIATION

we can make glasses that are strong and that can deflect radiations from the sun

to get this project done...we really need an enermous amount of money but if all the countries in the world will lend a hand and i thnk this projct will be possible

and i made a sketch at paint so that some of you will have an idea

replies...if somethings wrong with my proposal... tell me please so that i can make it better

Edited April 16, 2006 by kryptoguy

[Waspie_Dwarf]

There aren't ice caps as such on the moon. A few craters at the poles have areas that sunlight never reaches. It is thought that water ice mat exist in those shadows. You certainly won't need to worry about flooding.

Most meteorites that are a threat on the moon are micro meteorites,(sand sized objects moving at high speed. Most of these could be stopped by placing the base under a few feet of soil. Large meteorites are as rare on the moon as the are on earth and so the chances of the base being destroyed by one are fairly small. The moon looks like it is hit more frequentky because there are no geological processes or weather to remove the old craters. Most are many millions of years old. The laser protection would probably not be necessary.

The lack of clouds on the moon makes solar power ideal except for one detail. Day lasts for 2 weeks on the moon, followed by 2 weeks of night. One solution would be = a massive amount of batteries to store the solar power for the long night. The other possibilities are a series of solar power stations around the moon connected to th base by cables so that several are always in day light (probably best to have a few in case one fails). Another option would be to place the power station at the moons poles. As well as craters which are in permanent darkness there are mountain tops which are in permanent light.

[kryptoguy]

There aren't ice caps as such on the moon. A few craters at the poles have areas that sunlight never reaches. It is thought that water ice mat exist in those shadows. You certainly won't need to worry about flooding.

Most meteorites that are a threat on the moon are micro meteorites,(sand sized objects moving at high speed. Most of these could be stopped by placing the base under a few feet of soil. Large meteorites are as rare on the moon as the are on earth and so the chances of the base being destroyed by one are fairly small. The moon looks like it is hit more frequentky because there are no geological processes or weather to remove the old craters. Most are many millions of years old. The laser protection would probably not be necessary.

The lack of clouds on the moon makes solar power ideal except for one detail. Day lasts for 2 weeks on the moon, followed by 2 weeks of night. One solution would be = a massive amount of batteries to store the solar power for the long night. The other possibilities are a series of solar power stations around the moon connected to th base by cables so that several are always in day light (probably best to have a few in case one fails). Another option would be to place the power station at the moons poles. As well as craters which are in permanent darkness there are mountain tops which are in permanent light.

i agree with that...how many giant batteries would it take to power a moon colony for 2 weeks and how about the cables to the stations, we have to make cables of more than 50 miles of length?

but if were going to put the base underground, how about the plants... they cant make food without sunlight?

[Pax Unum]

what about a nuclear power supply? just wondering

[kryptoguy]

what about a nuclear power supply? just wondering

Oh!!...we could use nuclear power for the weeks that we dont have sunlight!..

[Mad Manfred]

I think it'd be a good idea to make plans to land a man on the moon before we start talking about colonization. Thinking a bit far ahead.

[kryptoguy]

I think it'd be a good idea to make plans to land a man on the moon before we start talking about colonization. Thinking a bit far ahead.

we landed on moon, next stop staying there!

[poleshift]

Bring Stirling engine and generator set to Moon to produce electricity power.

Suppose it is easy to find big temperature difference over there.

Edited April 28, 2006 by poleshift

[Bella-Angelique]

Moon Water: A Trickle of Data and a Flood of Questions

By Leonard David

Senior Space Writer

posted: 06 March 2006

06:54 am ET

NASA is in the process of scripting how best to plant new bootprints on the Moon and take advantage of lunar resources that could prolong human stays on that barren ball of rock.

While the Moon is one desolate world, it could turn out to be a faraway faucet of sorts.

Robotic spacecraft—both the Pentagon’s Clementine (1994) and NASA’s Lunar Prospector (1998-1999) missions—point to the promise that the Moon is a literal watering hole for crews.

Permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles, called "cold traps," might be repositories of water ice. More importantly, this reserve could be converted to oxygen, drinkable water, even rocket fuel.

However, water ice on the Moon is far from being a slam dunk deduction. There is ongoing dispute about whether or not such frozen caches of water reside in sunshine-deprived lunar craters.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008 will dive into the issue. link

[Doom]

Ok Now how are you going to get this project financed?

There are many ways this can be done I am sure of.