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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 it air tight?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The creation of moon bricks = The first step in the collapse of the lunar housing market.
Test me and I will chronicle your pain - The Archivist (Diablo 3)
Who would've thought reading too many times the same fable to your children could have such results.
Damn you little piggies!
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.
According to Faierson, one-square inch of the brick could withstand the gradual application of 2,450 pounds.
This strength would enable it to withstand an environment where gravity is a fraction of the pull on Earth.
What does compression strength have to do with minimal gravity? (Other then you can build a structure 3x as heavy on the moon without worrying about the bricks breaking)
Kudos to the team for making the connection from armour plating tanks to building structures.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
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
Apple, too, has been experimentally creating bricks for years.
Bricks could never provide the same level of radiation shielding and meteorite protection as tens of meters of lunar regolith. Tunneling is the best option.
what exactly will this be used for? It makes more sense to build a digger.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
But every sci-fi show and book ever made promised me a bio-dome! Man, can't even trust science fiction anymore.
I've been in the moon rock vault at NASA in Houston. Along with rocks, they have a sample of "moon concrete" that someone (on Earth) made out of real moon rocks many years ago, presumably also for future moon colony building.
Between concrete and bricks, apparently our future moon colonies are going to look like Soviet-era eastern Europe.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I sure hope no one shoots down their idea.
Bugs? Have the arachnids reached the moon already? Call out the mobile infantry...
Pr the Terran Federation Navy (from David Weber /Steve White's Stars at war series.)
Solar Energy on the moon is much better then on earth. 2 weeks of sunlight, no clouds.
... Followed by two weeks of cold and darkness. Better have some really good batteries, or a good transmission system to that moon base on the far side so that you can supply each other with energy when the sun goes down on your respective sides. At least on Earth you don't have to store the energy for so long, which does help somewhat.
The lunar poles aren't much better: You never do get a lot of light on a lot of surface area unless you build some very large hills or towers so that you always have a large surface area pointing at the sun, plus you only get two possible locations for your colony.
Still, probably not a bad tradeoff if you can solve the problems.
Oddly enough, the students' could be heard chanting "Zune for the Moon!" over and over.
I really can't figure out why, though.
Too bad concrete needs water.
I opened the article and got infected with a virus... dumb windows crap. Isn't there a way to report malware on this site?
Ummm...why not just live in tunnels or caves. We cannot allow a mine-shaft gap! That would provide better structure for pressurized environments and protection from tiny meteorites.
THL phish sticks
While I applaud the ingenuity of all involved, I must say I've seen more clever and useful ideas at the occasional high-school science fair.
1. The chemical composition of lunar surface material has been known for quite some time.
2. It would literally be child's play to produce a workable cement or concrete mixture from the regolith. Absolutely high-school chemistry.
3. Thermal curing is self-evident.
4. (Kudos, I suppose, for using a wire down the middle of a brick to compensate for the lack of a thermally conductive medium, like an atmosphere.)
5. Why would one ever consider using bricks on the moon? I can't think of a less-logical building material for the lunar environment. The less seams in your construct, the better.
I understand that the curing method could easily be applied to larger modules, if not whole structures at once. You could 'cure' an entire building at once, for example, if you designed it the right way.
But the article seems to be going out of it's way to focus on the manufacture of 'bricks'; which to me means 'mortar', which to me means 'seams', and that rhymes with 'means', there will be trouble in Lunar City.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
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Stick Men
Maybe I'm just missing the point, but could anyone explain to me exactly why a moon-colony or whatever would have to be made out of "lunar rock-like" materials?