|
Author
|
Topic: from New Scientist magazine: Breakthrough for Return to Moon
|
capejeffs
New Member Posts:
From:
Registered:
|
posted 01-24-2005 08:49 AM
   
New Scientist is publishing the results of a vacuum, lunar conditions simulation for the production of solar cells out of moon dust, using robots. A "sci-fi" sounding development, which the magazine is reporting as a great boost for the return-to-the-moon initiative. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6892
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pleiades cometstreams ."..consider the heavens..". Click page's beautiful image
to enlarge: http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance/article_110_1.asp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Duke Of URL
Member Posts: 1316
From: Syracuse, NY
Registered: Jan 2005
|
posted 01-26-2005 01:54 AM
Yo!I always speculated about the self-sustaining abilities of lunar bases. A lot of people talk about nuclear power, but I think you wouldn't need it. Obviously solar energy is abundant,but wouldn't it be less expensive by far to use solar energy in place of nuclear materials to power a turbine? All a reactor does is boil water. We'd have to ship at least one to the moon and the cost would be enormous due to shielding etc. Plus, the "No Nukes" crowd would lose their minds. Hey! Think how quickly you could make solar tea, too! I don't care what any of my ex-wives say, this isn't a crackpot idea. Just put a facility in an area of perpetual sun (there have to be a few right??) and pump water or some liquid through. The difference is that you only fly a pressure vessel and some pipes instead of lead and bunches of other stuff. |
Rodina
Member Posts: 836
From: Lafayette, CA
Registered: Oct 2001
|
posted 01-26-2005 11:00 AM
You'd need to work out the mass of what it would take to store the energy for the overnight. Batteries, heat sinks, or something. I believe that something like 3/4 of the power of the ISS solar arrays go to charge batteries for the 1/2 of the time the station is in darkness.There are a couple of spots on the Moon that are rarely out of the sun (that mountain near the South Pole), but the engineering calculus cannot ignore the need to store power. Nuclear power avoids a lot of those engineering problems, but certainly creates political ones.
|
Duke Of URL
Member Posts: 1316
From: Syracuse, NY
Registered: Jan 2005
|
posted 01-27-2005 10:21 PM
Well, the ISS is in orbit in what, a 90-minute period? On the Moon it's 14 days.There have to be points on the lunar surface that are always sunlit, the same way there are places perpetually dark. I'm ignorant of most of the facts that would make or break my idea. My message was really more like "Gosh! That would be neat, Flash...I mean Commander Gordon!." |
star61
Member Posts: 294
From: Bristol UK
Registered: Jan 2005
|
posted 02-09-2005 08:36 AM
Superconducting materials will enable us to run a base and create an energy storage solution on a lot less power than conventional systems. The technology is there, the physics is fairly well understood , it just takes action to go and do it. Phil G |
star61
Member Posts: 294
From: Bristol UK
Registered: Jan 2005
|
posted 02-09-2005 03:00 PM
Phil G [This message has been edited by star61 (edited February 10, 2005).] |
advertisement