Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!ima!ISM780!chris
From: chris@ISM780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Lunar Colony
Message-ID: <135@ISM780.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Mar-85 01:05:32 EST
Article-I.D.: ISM780.135
Posted: Sat Mar  2 01:05:32 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Mar-85 07:52:56 EST
Lines: 39
Nf-ID: #N:ISM780:33300003:000:1779
Nf-From: ISM780!chris    Mar  1 10:19:00 1985


 I've been wondering about how much mass would be needed to get
a small colony started on the moon. I'm assuming that the colony
would be 4 to 8 people living on the moon for a couple of years.
There would be flights from earth, but they would not (because of
cost) be able to bring each and every item that was needed. What
i suspect they would bring is complicated manufactured items
(like chips, carbon mono-filament, carbide tipped machine tool
bits) that would be too difficult to manufacture on the moon.

 It seems like one of the first orders of business would be
to start some type of farm, because food is high bulk, and people
need a lot of it every day. Water and oxygen would be broken out
of the rocks, and metals smelted using solar mirrors.

 Living arrangements would almost certainly have to be underground
to provide cheap protection against sunlight, radiation, micrometeorites
and big tempreture changes. One housing technique might be to dig a
hole, put in a big ballon, and cover it with foam in place plastic
to provide a rigid shell. This would then be covered with lunar
soil as an insulator.

Here is the list of stuff (by no means comprehensive) that looks
necessary:

a lathe                 Food for ~1 year
plastic monomers        solar mirror pieces (don't have to be very good)
plastic tents           digging equipment (vacuum version of small cat)
water                   fertilizers, seeds, farming tools
electronic repair kit   medical equipment and drugs
explosives              wire, lights, general electrical contractors stuff
air renewer (and spares) pressure suits

This is looking like quite a bit of mass. How do we get it into orbit,
and how do we get it down to the lunar surface?


			chris kostanick
			decvax!vortex!ism780!chris