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Va. Tech Students Create Experimental Bricks For the Moon
goran72 writes "Students from the college of engineering at Virginia Tech in the US have made highly durable bricks composed of a lunar rock-like material, which one day might be used to build dwellings in colonies on the moon."
is there in the composition and the structure of the rock/dust on the moon, is it all the same? i would imagine this is a key point if you are going to make bricks out of it, imagine having a fool proof plan to make bricks out of sandstone when you moved somewhere and only finding granite
If you're looking to build some sort of permanent colony on the Moon, you're not going to want the people who live there to have to stay in their spacesuits all the time. Therefore, they need some sort of airtight living quarters. This brick seems like a neat idea for equipment storage or something like that, but probably wouldn't be too useful for living areas if it couldn't be made airtight.
Yes, the moon bugs are very bad in the sping and don't even get me started on Monsoon season!
Aluminium is present in the moons crust, but some big nuclear reactors are going to be needed.
First for aluminium production, then for the brick making.
Well they already plan to use nuclear reactors on the moon base, but oh, what's that big yellow ball of gas there right there?
Solar energy, mate.
Bricks can provide vaults, which can provide cheap structural elements, which you can then cover with meters upon meters of regolith, using a cheap electro-Ford tractor, without needing complex tunneling equipment, explosives, and risk.
That's OK, you'll only ever really see such colonies from the inside anyway. With all the harmful radiation out on the lunar surface, you'll want to stay in your lunar warren as much as possible. You might see the outside of the colony briefly on your arrival/ departure, and some jobs will require some outdoor work, but I should think most lunar colonists will stay almost exclusively indoors.
Of course, as long as it is built (or dug) sufficiently large, there's no reason why "indoors" couldn't have trees, fields, plants, lakes, houses, simulated weather...
Build the brick structure, and then inflate the living area inside it. You now have a living area that is protected from the elements by the brick structure, and is airtight due to the inflatable liner.
What about the "dome habitat" concept? Is that even feasible outside science fiction?
Well during the dark period I would suggest not making bricks and run off battery of energy light activities.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Bricks are like violence or astraglide.
If it's not working, you're not using enough.
THL phish sticks