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Hotel on the Moon
pythorlh writes: "This site has plans submitted for a hotel on the moon. Interesting solution to the various engineering challenges. Also, Astronomy Picture of the Day has an artists concept." It's an insane cantilevered design that couldn't be built in full-gravity. I look forward to the day when "Low-Gravity Architectonics" is a required course for your B.Arch.
Am I the only one that thinks the designer went to the Quake Arena School of Architectural Design?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
> couldn't be built in full-gravity
Ok i'll bite. This seems entirely wrong.
To acheive equilibrium, there must be equal torques around the pivot... now give that both sides of the pivot are subject to the same gravitational force (both sides are on the moon, not one on the moon, one on earth), there is no reason why if this is indeed sustainable at any gravitational force, that it wouldn't be at full force.
Seem to me that the search for lunar water would be the key to everything else. Once you have a secure (on the lunar surface - hence cheap) water source you can expand into all these other ideas. But until that is done, you are going to make slow and extremely expensive progress on everything else lunar related.
It's a cute design. Maybe it'll inspire some two-bit amateur sci-fi writer somewhere. Will it ever be built on the moon? Not this century, it won't.
Yeesh.
Got Rhinos?
This "design" is about as useful as a Microsoft operating system on a computer with bad ram ;) They didn't even touch on the critical issues at all, they just made a fanciful design and said, "here you are!"
;) We're talking automated mining, automated melting/refining, and automated molding. A milling machine would be useful, so they can adapt when something goes wrong by making a new part (it'd take days to get something from earth). Of course, these machines would need to be shipped up, too :) Construction equiptment would probably be best manned, as we still have a lot of trouble with computers percieving 3d spacial phenominae. Howeverm the construction of all of these devices (mostly AI research) would have immediate application here on Earth, as well, and thus, NASA (and other organizations) can help pay for their work.
Some realities:
The cost for even maintaining such a facility would be unbelievably staggering. Moving things off of earth is incredibly expensive. Moving an estimage of a few hundred tons of steel, glass, plastic, concrete, all sorts of things, is ludicrous. Then, transferring up all food, oxygen, water, new people, taking off old people, etc, the numbers just keep growing.
The reality of the situation, is that you need a self-supporting colony before you can design a "hotel".
First off, before you can do much of anything, you need a power source. On most thin or no-atmosphere planets and moons, this is best accomplished by solar power - not solar panels, by far - but by a field of (cheap) steel reflector dishes that track the sun and focus its light onto a single point. What you then have is an excelent temperature differential (between that point and the rock; on earth, power stations such as these use the air more often). Only the motors/control systems and the generator itself would need to be shipped from earth; the dishes are simple enough to make locally using temporary power (nuclear or other).
Temporary power would, at first, control mining and component construction. Molds would undoubtably be shipped from earth. Equiptment would need to be mostly or completely automated - keeping a huge construction team of humans alive, away from earth, is expensive
Construction itself has all sorts of hurdles. In addition to the numerous problems you'll see just from basic spacewalk-repairs, you'll also have the blanket of lunar sand to deal with, the need to construct completely air-tight structures away from earth, etc. The easiest way would be if you could mold mostly-complete structures and link them together via tunnels - but, then, you have a low cap on your room size. Even worse, on a body as low-G as the moon, you would definitely want artificial gravity, and thus need to have a base that can spin, if you plan on anyone staying there for a reasonable amount of time (and you will - maintaining a micro-society would require a lot of local personelle, from repairs, to expansions, to running equiptment, etc.)
What sort of equiptment will you need to keep running? O2 generators. Water generators. Water recyclers. Food-related equiptment - a gigantic hydroponic greenhouse, its related heating, harvesting, water-filtering, air-regulation, etc, equiptment - food processing equiptment, etc. Heating and air filtering/balance maintinence for the personelle (many elements to keep the air having the proper distribution for a long period of time). Power generation, mining, and processing equiptment. All of the interconnections (pipes, cables, etc). Communications and computer equiptment. Radio communications. All the equiptment used in daily life. Etc.
Only once you have a stable environment could it ever be economically feasable.
-= rei =-
"Well, then fire it up and show me what this..." (sigh)
... building deparment wants for permit and inspection fees?
Cause if the lens flare on the moon is that horrible I'm staying home.