is it possible to build a city on the
moon NASA and Ross cosmos made parallel
announcements about cooperation build
the new lunar orbiting space station
very recently nASA has been working with
its partners to build a new space
station and everybody's thrilled now
that Ross cosmos the Russian space
agency has joined in the fun on October
19th 2017 scientists reviewing some data
from the former Japanese Kaguya lunar
satellite which crashed onto the moon in
2009 revealed a 50 meter hole in a
formation called the Mariusz hills
further study by radio waves has
revealed that this is in fact a lava
tube formed about 3.5 billion years ago
it's 50 kilometres or 30 miles long and
would likely make a great settlement for
early explorers involved in building a
more sophisticated city since the moon
has only a trace of atmosphere it
provides no protection from radiation or
meteorites an underground lava tube
would keep the inhabitants safe from
such dangers lava tubes are formed when
molten rock pours through fissures
creating a circular tunnel when the lava
flow stops the tubes drain leaving a
flat floor and a strong arched roof such
tubes exist here on earth but on the
moon they are much larger they're likely
a kilometer tall and wide so combined
with their length could easily fit any
of the Earth's largest cities including
all of its tallest buildings scientists
researchers construction crews and
everyday citizens would be safe from the
hazards of space in there for a number
of years stories have been circulating
about building a dome over the crater
named Shackleton it's 40 kilometers or
25 miles across and at the center it
would be 1500 meters tall the enclosed
surface would provide uncrowded living
area for almost unlimited numbers of
people the glass roof made from lunar
silica would be supported by titanium
and aluminium frames but narrow enough
to be almost invisible from inside on
the ground even though several metres
thick in multiple layers to control
thermal expansion and contraction it
would still be transparent if a meteor
did happen to strike the dome it might
take up one to four panels based on the
largest meteor predicted and whether it
struck a single panel or a junction
between four of the hexagonal shaped
panels
the air leakage would be very slow
because when you have about 40 cubic
kilometers of air and a tiny hole it
would be hours before the pressure
change was noticeable it could be days
before there was significant loss there
would be plenty of time to repair it the
fastest strategy would probably be a
giant Kevlar beach ball that can be
placed over the breach and be held in
place by the air pressure inside the
dome while a repair was executed by an
external team composed of the original
robots that built the dome beneath the
surface city would be a subterranean
city containing infrastructure this is a
leftover of where the original
inhabitants and construction workers
lived before the dome was complete it
would contain living space sufficient
for all residents in the event of a
catastrophic dome failure in the case of
a very large hole cryogenic coolers
could rapidly condense the atmosphere
inside the dome to a liquid state saving
as much as 80% of the atmosphere until
the dome could be repaired it's a small
possibility but one worth being prepared
for using automated construction both
for safety and speed such a dome could
be built in 15 years provided the lunar
mining operation was in full swing some
medical researchers have suggested that
under the influence of lower gravity the
human lifespan might increase to 150
years so it could make an excellent
retirement place such an enclosed crater
would have an area exceeding 1,250
kilometers squared or 485 square miles
or a little more than 20 times the size
of Manhattan Island not only would it
make a fine place to live
it could take decades to fully explore
looking at the image above you might
also note that almost 20% of the crater
is taken up by a central lake about five
times the size of Manhattan we could
fill it by mining ice from permanently
shadowed craters located around the
moon's poles and it would serve as a
central reservoir for the entire city
supporting aquaculture food as well as
fish populations with all of Earth's
entertainment resources only 1.25 light
seconds away there would be no reason
not to have any sort of entertainment
that was available on the home planet
including theaters with only 1,200 50
millisecond delay time you could still
log into the internet and play MMO
Fuji's with your earth friends if you
desired this is completely unlike Mars
where the time delay is dependent on
where both planets are in their orbits
there the delay could be as little as
four minutes but as much as 24 minutes
more interesting is that lunar gravity
is only one-sixth of Earth's normal
gravity simple fabric wings would be
sufficient for a reasonably healthy
person to fly under their own power a
small electric motor could make it
effortless slow and silent whereas a
bigger one could make it fast
competitive and noisy the moon has other
advantages in that far side is
completely shielded from all the
electromagnetic emissions of Earth it
would make the ideal location to perform
radio astronomy optical Astronomy from
just about anywhere on the moon would be
fantastic too since there will be no
atmosphere to interfere with viewing
fusion Energi is making great progress
lately one promising possibility is the
elements called helium-3 which is
plentiful on the moon because it has no
atmosphere and the solar wind deposits
it there we have very little on the
earth but just 25 tons could power an
energy hungry country like the United
States for a whole year countries like
India China Russia and others have all
expressed interest in mining the moon
for this material even private industry
is getting on board with people like
James Cameron Larry Page and Eric
Schmidt
using their company Planetary Resources
to get the ball rolling NASA is
conducting research too so this is
serious business that will make the next
generations billionaires and 3 billion
per tonne there is plenty of reason to
go after this non radioactive fuel for
nuclear reactors of course we don't have
to start with such a large crater that
would take so many years to complete a
small one just 5 kilometers across would
provide 20 kilometers squared of living
area hydroponic food growth complexes
were a 1 hectare facility produces as
much as a 100 hectare earth farm leave
all that land available for things other
than crops such a facility could be
built by a hotel chain conglomerate
making the vacation destination that was
out of this world not fantastic enough
on its own soon you could expect that
they would challenge to spot to the
lunar version of the Olympics with the
20 meter pole vault - 2 meter hurdles
and the 10
endurance human powered flight race the
floor work for the gymnasts ought to be
incredible but for safety sake maybe we
should skip the shot put in the javelin
toss the most important job for Humanity
right now is to get a large sustainable
population of human beings off of this
single planet our planet exists in the
middle of a cosmic shooting gallery if
it wasn't for jupiter and the other gas
giants sweeping up the larger rocks
before they entered the inner solar
system we would be subject to
devastating asteroid strikes much more
often the old adage about having all
your eggs in one basket is dangerously
applicable to the human race we might be
able to deflect a large rock heading for
our planet that could destroy all life
we're the first earth life that is
intelligent enough to be able to detect
such a thing and do something about it
the fact we're making so little effort
in that direction should frighten
everybody
building a city on the moon is not only
a fantastic idea scientifically but one
of the best things that we can do to
assure the survival of our race in case
there is an asteroid heading right for
us that we haven't detected yet remember
what happened to our dinosaur friends
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