Tag: #SpaceInfrastructure
#155 The Bearing Term: Why Lunar Ground Ages With Every Landing
In the designs for a permanent lunar settlement, nearly everything is specified. There are drawings for pressure modules, for reactors, for rovers, for airlocks and for growth chambers. What barely appears in those drawings is the surface all of it is meant to stand on.
#151 A Colony on Resupply: What a Permanent Settlement on the Moon Actually Requires
Before I talk about flags, programmes and schedules, I want to look soberly at the place itself. The Moon is not a small planet. It is a body with one eightieth of Earth's mass and one sixth of its gravity, without air, without a magnetic field, without a water cycle and without weather of any kind. What passes for an atmosphere at its surface is a vacuum better than anything an earthly laboratory produces. The average distance is 384,400 kilometres, three days of flight, 1.3 seconds for a radio signal.