Moonbase vs. Moon Space Station?

[Andy44]

No, I meant from the mountaintops to the valley floor. I thought you meant to put the base near the pole, but not on the high ground. Stick the base in the valley and run power and comm lines up to the high ground where your antenna farm and solar farm are located.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Unless the base only 100 meters or so from the cells.

 

[NukeET]

The most practical solution would be a nuclear reactor, which is pretty expensive compared to solar cells, difficult to build and operate and a safety risk.

What safety risk? Sure, there is a safety risk. But compared to building a lunar base and operating it?

Difficult to build? Most space fairing nations now have nuclear power plants.

 

[Andy44]

Actually I can't think of a much safer place for a nuclear reactor than the Moon.

You bring the reactor in with fuel rods inside a cassette so it's not "hot" until you're ready to start operating it. You dig a big pit several miles from the base, insert the powerplant, which consists of the reactor and associated machinery, cover it with an arch-shaped dome structure, and cover the whole thing with dirt, leaving only an access hatch exposed (which you will hopefully never use). Coolant lines to radiators and power lines to base, and then push the button to drop the rods in and away you go. If it melts down, there's no ground water to contaminate, no one's going to breathe any radioactive materials, no one's going to be trying to grow crops or graze cattle nearby.

 

[James.Denholm]

The only problem I can think of a ground base is the fact that you've got to carve the darn thing out of rock. With a fair few people, things might easily get as cramped as back up at a space station.

That, and the higher chance of the aliens trying to invade the base... you'd see the little suckers when they were still miles away if you were in orbit.

 

[Biscuit]

You have to be careful with the nuclear wastes on the moon, though ...

The nuclear wastes start chain reacting, and the next thing you know the moon gets blasted out of Earth orbit and starts wandering all over the galaxy.

 

[James.Denholm]

Which is not nessicarily a bad thing, of course. If you can hollow out the Moon, and propel it with well-controlled meltdowns, volia! Instant colony ship!

 

[JamesG]

Actually I can't think of a much safer place for a nuclear reactor than the Moon...

It's getting it to the moon that will be the tricky dangerous part. You have to lift it from Earth and that means flying your reactor over other countries and inhabited areas. So there is that element of risk/liability. For a commercial enterprise, the red tape alone would be a complete nightmare and make it impossible. Government programs would be the only ones who could absorb the risk and underwriting necessary.

In this day and age... probably better to just go with a solar array field.

 

[TSPenguin]

You can quite easily store the actual radioactive material in a safe shell, that will not brake up on reentry or impact...
Solar arrays have some big advantages though. There is no wear and you don't need to refuel them. You would however have to replace some after some time due to unlucky micro meteors. But with that in mind they can be designed to last a long long time.

 

[RisingFury]

It's getting it to the moon that will be the tricky dangerous part. You have to lift it from Earth and that means flying your reactor over other countries and inhabited areas. So there is that element of risk/liability. For a commercial enterprise, the red tape alone would be a complete nightmare and make it impossible. Government programs would be the only ones who could absorb the risk and underwriting necessary.

In this day and age... probably better to just go with a solar array field.

The problem with solar arrays is that it would force the base to be at the poles. That restricts you to a certain type of terrain... and if there's a crater there, it wouldn't be the best place to build the base in.

If you would employ those suborbital hop rockets, flying into and out of a crater might not be the brightest idea.

 

[JamesG]

And to bring this thread around full circle, thats why you have a lunar sat. that either reflects or beams down power.

 

[Andy44]

Actually, solar cells do wear out over time. Being hit with hard solar radiation does a number on materials. But they do have many advantages. If you have enough batteries or some other energy storage device you may get away with using them at lower latitudes, but batteries are very heavy. If only Heinlein's stories came true and uranium was found in quantity on Luna...

 

[James.Denholm]

And to bring this thread around full circle, thats why you have a lunar sat. that either reflects or beams down power.

I read about that concept somewhere, great big satellites in geo-stationary orbits, beaming down huge amounts of microwave energy...

 

[RisingFury]

I read about that concept somewhere, great big satellites in geo-stationary orbits, beaming down huge amounts of microwave energy...

There is no geostationary orbit for the Moon. The Moon has a very slow rotation, nearly 1 month, and that would place the geostationary orbit quite a distance away. I haven't done any calculations, but I think it would be so far out, that the Moon's gravity would be negligible compared to the Sun's.



Well, whatever the case with the power, I think that a surface base has a lot more advantages then a space station.