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Chandrayaan-1 Spots Giant Underground Chamber On the Moon
siliconeyes writes "Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization have discovered a giant underground chamber on the moon, which they feel could be used as a base by astronauts on future manned missions to moon. An analysis by an instrument on Chandrayaan-1 revealed a 1.7-km long and 120-metre wide cave near the moon's equator that is in the Oceanus Procellarum area of the moon that could be a suitable 'base station' for future human missions."
Other than that, sure, sounds spiffy. Now we just need to wait for something useful to do up in Space (and practical, for that matter.)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
So do the humans plan evicting the aliens that live in there? Or do they live only on the side of the moon that doesn't face Earth?
fist cave post
A far better link is this one: http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/ISRO_Lavatube_Discovery.html
You can't tell the length of a chamber from a photograph of the surface. Its not at all clear that there is any enclosed space in this tube. It could have been that the un-collapsed section is in fact filled full of derbies. Until we can hit them with ground penetrating radar its probably guesswork.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Make sure workers in that cave have plenty of copies of 'The Empire Strikes Back' with a high definition cave scene!
This is obviously the aliens' flying saucer moon base. We best not mess with it.
You have been eaten by a Grue.
for some reason when i read this the phrase "metal munching moon mice" popped into my head. apparently it's from a rocky and bullwinkle episode i must have seen a very long time ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal-Munching_Mice
DA DA
dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun
Anybody want my mod points?
Is that you?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I want one that is still closed:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1876
Pics or it didnt happen.
Since the moon isn't covered by any legal jurisdiction, it would be a perfect place to set up a data haven. In fact, I believe one company already has plans to set up a lunar facility.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
This cace is "near the moon's equator". The only places where we could find water are on the poles. So, what to do there? Sitting in a cave doing nothing may be fine, but why go to the moon for that?
Caveman > Bronze Age > Iron Age > Industrial Age > Space Age > Caveman
People old enough to have read and enjoyed Heinlein stories may recall that he wrote one that included a lunar underground (subselenean) cavern pressurised with air in which lunar colonists could strap on modest-sized wings and tailfeathers and fly like birds, for recreation.
The danger! It has been foreseen!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_the_Moon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-Women_of_the_Moon
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
"Chandrayaan-1 revealed a ... wide cave ... that could be a suitable 'base station'"
Han Solo thought that, too.
Unless this is a deep, deep chamber the possibility of it collapsing when pressurized precludes just plugging up holes and using it. All it's good for is radiation shielding.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Scientists also report seeing a tall black monolith inside the chamber. Investigations are continuing...
He did have such a terrible cold.
Sig this!
I'm surprised they allowed their mass-media mind-control network to leak the fact that there are tunnels on the Moon. Perhaps they accidentally drank some of their own fluoridated water? Either way, the Annunaki will be pissed.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Bloody human scientists! Now I have to relocate.
Obviously where the Nazis fled at the end of WWII. Now, where's my thorium?
It's a space station!
Excellent location for Simon Jester to hang out in.
From the article, "the lava tubes offer a dust-free environment and adapting them for human use requires minimal construction. "
I think someone's been drinking too much of the strong coffee if they can conclude anything about dust levels in a lunar cave without having put any telemetry into the hole, or think that adapting any natural structure on the moon requires minimal construction without having actually imaged the fine-scale condition of the rock.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
If you believe the transformers new movie, the cybertronians crash landed there centuries ago.
I think we'll find undead vampire zombies myself!
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
naturally cooled habitat at -20c ... 1 second away from earth... roundtrip tip may suck for wallstreet but could be fun
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
That HG Wells, he knew this and wrote about it in First Men In the Moon back in 1901.
If the chamber is deserted, I wonder...did he really go to the moon?
Just maybe...
This thing is hollow... it goes on forever and... oh my god, it's full of stars!
(from memory, be kind to me quote nazis)
...As long as they don't drop a "Clanger" and upset the "Soup Dragon"...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
It's not up to Swiss Cheese status, but they keep finding more and more gigantic holes, this is just the latest and currently the one with the largest estimated size. Let's see what they find next year...
If you haven't read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", do.
Most likely the first "real" moon base will be located where the water is. Water would be needed to make fuel, food and oxygen and would negate building a huge ship to carry supplies and water to the moon.
I am only a rocket engineer and not an actual Rocket Scientist (tm), so could someone explain to me what this means from the original article:
> The roof thickness of the uncollapsed portion of the lava tube is estimated using the empirical relation of crater geometry
> t = d × 0.25 × 2,
> where t is the estimated thickness of the tube segment, d the maximum crater diameter superposed on the tube segment. Thus the
> maximum depth is approximately one quarter the crater diameter (0.25 × d), and the roof thickness is at least twice the depth.
A) It isn't a crater, it is a lava tube formed by a completely different mechanism and thus should be expected to have a non-similar morphology, so using this formula makes sense why?
B) If "the roof thickness is at least twice the depth" of the crater, there would be no air gap, unless the roof is arched over the "crater", which still sounds pretty nonsensical to me due to the amount it would have to arch up and meet the criteria of their calculation.
This is potentially contradicted by their statements 2 paragraphs later:
> Here, the maximum crater diameter on the uncollapsed portion of the lava tube is 140 m. The roof thickness estimated is 70 m."
I have a feeling that I understand what they are trying to say with crater diameter with respect to depth (though I disagree with it, since this scans as if they are saying that craters have a hemispherical cross-section, which is obviously false based on any crater I have ever seen or created), but if I am understanding it right the roof thickness should be 1/2 the depth, not 2x?
The following paragraph explains what they expect in terms of terrestrial lava tubes, and that DOES make sense, but trying to calculate lava tube (flow or pooling created, presumably) characteristics based off of crater (impact or explosion created, presumably) characteristics fills me with cognitive dissonance.
Now, if you will forgive me, I have some shit to go blow up before I have to turn in my engineer card for actually bothering to read not just TFA but TFOATFAIBO (the fine original article the fine article is based on).
...after the Earth had been all but abandoned and become a legend.
Of course, some people have known about this for a long time...
http://www.ironsky.net/site/
I hope to some day fly with wings in that low-G chamber when it's pressurized with the air storage for our Moon colony. As per Heinlein's The Menace From Earth (1957).
--
make install -not war
So, when do we go live with the "genesis wave"?
To quote Kirk, if years seemed like eons, how long? A few years away! ;)
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
Shinning example of America on the fast track to third world status. India in space? Who's next Zimbabwe? America stop sucking!
Visit my Forums?
"This is no asteroid, sweetheart!"
...why is that named "R'lyeh"?
-Styopa
Depending on the version of Evangelion, the researchers may have just located the Lance of Longinus and perhaps the resting place of Kaworu Nagisa.
Honestly, I wish they *DID*! Maybe Jupiter igniting into a second sun would make those crazies in the Middle East settle down.
Ya think?
Willie...
I think I am B2: Secret Moon Base!
Don't believe it's safe to poison and abandon Mother Earth, just because you've found an inhospitable hole on the moon.
it's where teh film studio is!
...It's a Space Station!
probably left over from the Tok'ra. They must not have had time to destroy their tunnels before abandoning it.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Uncollapsed moon lava tubes have been known about for ages. I guess the Indians need to rally public support for their space program too. A cave on Mars or Uranus would be something new.
I guess we could send a company with good track record of drilling, how about BP? Oh wait, is that when the moon will split in 2 and pieces will fall to earth?
I just got down to bedrock and you are not going to steal all my diamonds! Don't make me put up Lava traps!
Ever hear of helium 3? Perhaps you are unaware that there is a severe shortage of it? Perhaps you are also unaware that it is used for lots and lots of stuff which make our modern world possible.
Lastly, it seems that you are unaware that the moon contains shit loads of it.
Seems to me like a practice and profitable reason.
These folks are not using mathematical notation. They are using the C programming language.
Actually the moon is under legal jurisdiction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty. However objects placed there continue to be under the jurisdiction of the government that put it there. It would seem that a company can not escape the jurisdiction of its earthly government by going to the moon.
Is anyone else surprised that no one had spotted it already?
...is the high frequency signal being aimed at Jupiter.
...and now back to Am-a-zon-Wo-men...on, -the moon.
My bet would be that, if a hole in the moon is full of derby, that would be Derby cheese, not hats or horses.
That would be a "Yo momma" joke in Latin.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
It's a gigantic warez space station!
I'm pretty sure that's just evidence of fossilized space bacteria.
for a 100000-man totally outsourced call center for Dell.
"So, Anand is complaining about the working conditions? Just let him walk out (grin)..."
Finally, a good reason to go back to the moon!
Really old "news". Must have cleaned and covered everything up by now, I supppose. Shame. Would make a spiffy "Disneyland". Space tourist bonanza. Doesn`t mean it can`t be redone - with animatronics and stuff. Low grav would probably help a lot there. Big bucks for sure.
Theoretically, the money flow could support a few scientists, experiments, and a lab or two, over there. Maybe even a telescope. Or a more easily accessible (lunar) orbital space telescope. Anyone up for an IPO :?
Am I the only one who immediately thought of the Heinline short story? I'd go for the wings!
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Cover it up, fill it w/ air and strap on wings!
Thanks for mentioning Clarke's A Fall of Moondust (1961).
I must have read that novel half a dozen times, back in the seventies (my teen years), and got more out of it every time.
I'll bet it still holds up today (with some allowance for post-1961 discoveries about the moon, naturally).
-kgj
Miss Piggy is very pro space.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Thanks for boiling down the article to its essential shortcomings.
I don't have the math to make sense of all this, but I can tell from your analysis that you know what you're talking about.
-kgj
TYCHO MAGNETIC ANOMALY.
You'll find it to be slimy and soft inside, just before it tries to EAT YOU!
If only we could spot aliens 50 years out.
Bigelow wants to put up their units on the moon. The US and other western aligned nations need to get this going as quickly as possible.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No grues, just a giant intelligent plant that imprisons any humans who happen to wander into the cave. Side benefit is that the plant can keep you alive forever thru the food and water it provides, but in return it wants you to worship it like a god.
So am I, in C '==' is used to compare two different objects it does not actually define either of them, '=' on the other hand does.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
It's the story line ... it's a terrific adventure story, a ripping yarn, really keeps the pages turning.
And besides well-plotted use of technology (which Clarke is supremely good at, of course), it's got a very rich and interesting set of well-plotted characters (not always his strength).
-kgj
I know you were joking, but for those people who don't get it - there is no dark side of the moon. There's a FAR side of the moon, but the sun rises and sets there just as it does on the near side.
Here we go again.
The GP is correct - there's nothing economically worthwhile to do on the moon. Maybe it's worthwhile for scientific purposes, but that's a case that is tough to make if you're talking about colonization.
For one thing, there's no practical use whatsoever for He3 at the moment. It's in demand as a feedstock for fusion research, and that's fine, but it certainly is not used for "lots and lots of stuff that makes our modern world possible".
Secondly, there's barely any He3 on the moon - concentrations of .01 ppm in the sunlit areas. Meaning you'd have to mine a hundred million tons of lunar regolith to get a ton of He3. That wouldn't be economically feasible on earth, much less the moon.
You're right, doing any kind of construction project on the moon is going to be really hard, partly because the conditions are pretty tough and partly because it's really, really expensive to bring all the tools and equipment you'd need.
But dude, if making a pipeline is going to be hard, why is digging a cave going to be easier? You'd have to design a bunch of construction equipment that didn't rely on diesel engines (no air), and then lift a bunch of them to the moon. Plus you need operators for that stuff, and where do they live in the meantime? How do you do all your civil engineering stuff - studies of the structural strength of the ground, etc - on the moon?
I think that if anything, building a cave from scratch is even harder.
No way that thing is airtight, and the cracks will be quite difficult to find in a structure of any size. You'd absolutely have to build a pressurized inner building inside the cave.
What makes them think the moon's crawlspace is not already in use?
I suspect that they've pulled back to Mars since we started throwing stuff at the Moon.
We could get there and find a huge door.
Would it be deep enough? I seem to recall that the cave used for flight in "The Menace From Earth" was fairly high inside, possibly in the kilometer range. The cave discovered here is long and relatively narrow. Given that it appears to be a lava tube, there may not be enough elevation to make flight worth while.
At the same time, you could always put a dome over some of the deeper craters and pressurize it.
So am I, in C '==' is used to compare two different objects it does not actually define either of them, '=' on the other hand does.
Nitpick: '=' in C is assignment, not definition. And I don't know how assignment of any kind makes any sense in above context, while saying "chamber filled with debris equals no chamber at all" is perfectly valid English turn of phrase, I think.
That is all.
We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone. -management
http://khurramtanveer-seobooks.blogspot.com/
So am I, in C '==' is used to compare two different objects it does not actually define either of them, '=' on the other hand does.
If you're using C, and think that = is a suitable replacement for >, you're a complete failure of a programmer. == is the syntactically appropriate replacement there.
I saw the movie in the 1950's. The convenient cave for a moon base turns out to have some prior residents. And they are hungry.