Author Topic: Better Locale? Lunar Caves versus Lunar Poles? (Read 8344 times)

redliox · « **on:** 04/03/2019 05:52 pm »

I'll lay it out simply, in the spirit of the announcement of returning to the Moon by 2024: which is overall better, a polar site or a cave site? Water resource or radiation & meteor protection? Everyone loves water but what about shelter?

Post your thoughts below!

whitelancer64 · « **Reply #1 on:** 04/03/2019 06:00 pm »

Where are all the known lunar caves?

Tulse · « **Reply #2 on:** 04/03/2019 06:23 pm »

Getting a hab into an actual cave would be seriously non-trivial, as compared to just landing it on a surface. One can also more easily scout polar sites than the interior of caves.

I think that caves/lava tubes are great places long-term for habitats, but the first places people will live on the moon will be the surface.

jstrotha0975 · « **Reply #3 on:** 04/03/2019 07:12 pm »

I think in the beginning there will be habitats on the surface, easier to place and build. Eventually after some years of exploration, suitable lava tubes will be found and used for shelters. And then eventually there will be infrastructure to dig shelters under ground (Boring company)

Slarty1080 · « **Reply #4 on:** 04/03/2019 08:56 pm »

One of the Lunar poles would be the better location. You can dig a hole at the pole but you can't make water in the Lunar caves

punder · « **Reply #5 on:** 04/03/2019 09:06 pm »

Quote from: Slarty1080 on 04/03/2019 08:56 pm

One of the Lunar poles would be the better location. You can dig a hole at the pole but you can't make water in the Lunar caves

Yep.

Need a machine that sucks up dust from regolith (how do you run a vacuum in a vacuum?) and shoots it into the equivalent of open lawn bags hung over and around the habitat...

Edit: how can we make bricks... without straw?! (extra points for the classic movie that [rough] quote comes from)
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-bricks-moon-lunar.html

KelvinZero · « **Reply #6 on:** 04/03/2019 10:07 pm »

The poles also have those https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light locations.

There is also speculation of ice in those caves
https://www.space.com/39404-lava-tube-skylights-discovered-moon-images.html

I definitely think the lunar poles are more immediate destinations, being entire regions. My bias is that the gift of shielded volume isn't super important. We can create that anywhere with a bit more energy, so access to energy could be more important. Also it could come with many gotchas such as shape and location being dictated by chance, and specialised architectural problems that we cannot even begin to think about right now.

If we can build from scratch with permanent sun energy, we can start simple (habs piled with dust) and progress to materials like 3d-printed basalt fibre that is as strong as steel, and build exactly what we want.

The caves are very interesting and we definitely should go and have a look with robust rovers. There could also be arguments to conserve these caves.

This could definitely be YET ANOTHER argument to get robust rovers on the moon and get a look at all these locations before committing to a manned architecture (the whole launch architecture and base design). I strongly favour a cheap "robotic colony" approach to really fully explore the moon and the industrialisation of the moon.