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Space

Hotel on the Moon 95

Posted by michael from the watch-out-for-Jaws dept.
pythorlh writes: "This site has plans submitted for a hotel on the moon. Interesting solution to the various engineering challenges. Also, Astronomy Picture of the Day has an artists concept." It's an insane cantilevered design that couldn't be built in full-gravity. I look forward to the day when "Low-Gravity Architectonics" is a required course for your B.Arch.
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Hotel on the Moon

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  • That's [rombaut.nl] an interesting use of a lever! (correct me if I'm wrong on my "simple machines" knowledge)

    Has this type of design been used anywhere else (on earth, I mean), or is it just pure conjecture on the architect's part?

    Overall, quite an interesting plan. Does it have a view of the monolith as well?

    -------
  • ...or is the APOD really bad? I could do that in 10 minutes with pov-ray.

  • You could equip it with some nice telescopes that would have much better views than on earth, though it'd have to be on the dark side then, or during the correct phase of the moon.

    There is always sex in low gravity. Get Heidi Fleis up there.

    Then again, Dennis Tito payed $20mil to float around in a tin can for a week!
  • What about the Jedi bellboys?

    And imagine entering the lobby and hearing "Welcome to the Lunatic Hilton".

  • A century is a REALLY long time (Score:3)

    by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @09:55PM (#86205) Homepage
    Not this century, it won't.

    May I remind you of the state of the art in computers, electronics, aviation and space technology just one century ago?

    -
  • What happens once they run out of the little soaps and shampoos.

    Chili sauce?

  • Yeah, right! (Score:3)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .reggoh.gip.> on Friday July 13, 2001 @06:56PM (#86207) Journal
    It's an insane cantilevered design that couldn't be built in full-gravity.
    Yeah, right.

    If you compare a cross-section of the proposed lunar hotel [rombaut.nl], you'll see there is nothing to boast about when you compare it to the Montréal Olympic Stadium [finditinmontreal.com], which is over 50 stories high, and built in one full G... (Here is another picture taken from 6 km away [finditinmontreal.com]).

    --
    Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.


  • I'll wager that you are mistaken about this: the
    loser has to nick a towel from the station and give it to the winner.
  • Not necessarily. See [restrooms.org]
    www.restrooms.org/technique.html

  • Now that's odd... (Score:5)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:13PM (#86210) Journal
    Am I the only one that thinks the designer went to the Quake Arena School of Architectural Design?

  • why can't this be built in full gravity? (Score:5)

    by figment ( 22844 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:20PM (#86211)
    > It's an insane cantilevered design that
    > couldn't be built in full-gravity

    Ok i'll bite. This seems entirely wrong.

    To acheive equilibrium, there must be equal torques around the pivot... now give that both sides of the pivot are subject to the same gravitational force (both sides are on the moon, not one on the moon, one on earth), there is no reason why if this is indeed sustainable at any gravitational force, that it wouldn't be at full force.

  • Due to all the other points made here, a moon hotel is unfeasible at this time.

    All of your points refer to this particular moon hotel design. While IANARocket Scientist, I think that a moon hotel is certainly feasible, although outrageously expensive at this time.

    -sk

  • Maybe China will build it, as long as they're exploiting lunar resources [slashdot.org]. The miners will need someplace to stay.
  • right, the gravity does not affect the balance. But it does affect the loading on the "arms" of the structure. In lower gravity you can build longer, thinner arms.

    --
  • I look forward to the day when "Low-Gravity Architectonics" is a required course for your B.Arch
    Why would a dog need a degree in "Low-Gravity Architectonics" to B.Arch?

    ---
  • Yeh...

    Let's go back to the 1-mile diameter bubble in the crust of the moon idea. I /want/ low-gravity flight with self-powered wings. I'll take the fancy native-american model with the eagle-feather dyed goose feathers, please, and the stoop frame for exhilerating power-dives!

    mefus
    --
    um, er... eh -- *click*
  • Or does it look like the tower further away from the camera is in the middle of "explosive decompression"?

    Also, those mega lens flares look like they're death rays aimed at those guys in space suits.
  • When was the last time you grew something?

    Just because you personally don't grow something doesn't mean that there are many, many people out there doing it for you.

    Very few motile species produce their own food for consumption. There is a little thing called the food chain.

    Humans actually are the only species that cultivate our own food for consumption. There's a whole market out there with just such a purpose.

    Furthermore, there isn't a single species of animal that works singularly to produce or cultivate their own food. Man wasn't meant to do the same. What we do happen to be very good at is supporting the entire species by delegating specific tasks to specific members of the species. The agriculture industry exists for just such the purpose of growing our food for us.

    A little thought about your comments would do you much better than a kneejerk reaction.

  • I don't know about you guys, but I'm not really attracted to slender and fragile looking buildings, especially if it's the only safe place on the whole ball of rock. Is it the architectural fashion now to create buildings that don't look safe?

    well it certainly won't be blown over by a gust of wind (no atmosphere), but i could envision a behemoth LGSUV (low-gravity sport utility vehicle) sending the thing toppling. of course, by toppling i mean descending slowly to the dusty surface.
  • How long will postcards need to go to the earth ?
    Will there be plenty of bandwidth ?

    -- Pure FTP server [pureftpd.org] - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
  • IANAE but..

    I suppose you could make an argument for materials strength.. ie, it'd balance just fine both here and on the moon, but the lower gravity on the moon might lower the stress on the materials to a point where they wouldn't snap like they might here on earth.

    Karl
  • If the Artemis Project [asi.org] has anything to say about it, it may come a lot sooner than you think.

    Though I'll agree the chances of this particular design (outside sleeping quarters at the top of the tower??) are slim to nil.

    Karl
  • Didn't you see GalaxyQuest?
  • This is all amusing, but I would suggest that if you want to know about actual plans for lunar development, visit http://www.asi.org/ or http://www.moonsociety.org/. Both sites are related and you can tour a mockup of a virtual lunar colony built in a lava tube.
  • Maybe the solution to that is an electromagnetic launcher. A large rail gun might be made to work. And the Quake crowd would go ballistic (groan).

  • Seem to me that the search for lunar water would be the key to everything else. Once you have a secure (on the lunar surface - hence cheap) water source you can expand into all these other ideas. But until that is done, you are going to make slow and extremely expensive progress on everything else lunar related.

  • who will be the first to make the obligatory "phallic" comment?
  • I hope they don't plan to build on the part where I have claim to the land. (A cereal box a long time ago awarded the person who sent in some $$ with a "deed" to moon property)
  • This Moon Hotel design is welcomed by the international Lunar Explorers Society, LUNEX [lunarexplorers.org].
    Or did I miss it? Sound familiar?
  • YES! One step closer to Sex In Outer Space [dazereader.com]!!

    Mike Roberto
    - GAIM: MicroBerto

  • This is a pipe dream (Score:4)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:05PM (#86231) Homepage
    This is not a serious architectural project, despite the tone of the post. The journalism here is degenerating into sensationalism.

    It's a cute design. Maybe it'll inspire some two-bit amateur sci-fi writer somewhere. Will it ever be built on the moon? Not this century, it won't.

    Yeesh.

  • Please don't insult POVRay like that -- this is obviously the work of one of those "3d web graphics" programs you see in compusa for 20$ :)
  • You missed the most important lesson from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

    The use of electromagnetic railguns as a low-cost way to move freight through space as an alternative to rockets.

    The difference between now and when he wrote it (he called them "catapults") is that a shitload of money was spent on development of railguns in the context of SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative aka Starwars) since the early '60s when the book was written. While the SDI concept was a failure, the railgun technology worked.

    Railguns can move the megatons required to build a space infrastructure for a few dollars a pound. Try that with rockets.
    - -

  • Well, sort of. They're already doing that with Motel 6 [slashdot.org]. Orbit, moon, they booh go around us, so what's the difference? After all, we are the center of the Universe, right? :)

    F-bacher
  • Yeah, and making a trip to the "New World" from Europe use to be so cheap. These things had to be financed by Royalty (aka the rich people). No peasants or middle class like people were funding these trips. Now my brother could finance a trip to London on a Cruise ship and he's dirt poor. Heck people with no money can leave Cuba by sea whenever they want as is. It may not be affordable now, but with more use (and eventually more competition), prices will go down.

    F-bacher
  • Uhhh....who's this guy---

    I think you should add this "Anonymous Coward"... He seems to troll a lot....


    F-bacher

  • This is exactly why we need a missle defense! We can add mini missle defenses on the moon to protect our all-so-important hotels.

    F-bacher
  • The idea is interesting, and using lunar materials is already a feasible possibility. Solar power could be used to foam rock for the structure, and water ice is suposedly present at the Moon's poles.

    But, without significant infrastructure to move people between the earth and the moon, feed them, supply air and water (reclammation of metabolic water would help for instance) a hotel on the moon is simply a playful idea, regardless of the detail. Besides, I think Heinlein's ideas in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are important. Going underground makes immense sense in an environment where the "open" can kill you abruptly.

  • A 3.5 meter insulating layer of water around both towers? On the moon? Someone is enjoying massive amounts of crack at this point. I would doubt there would be enough redily minable water within a reasonable distance to the site, and the thought of boosting that much H2O is laughable.
  • Um, that's only a step above your average ASCII art. It's not even close to good ASCII art.


    -------
  • What does that say about you?

    well, for one, it says that you're a man ;)

    -= rei =-

  • Re:Sigh (Score:5)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @04:36PM (#86242) Homepage
    This "design" is about as useful as a Microsoft operating system on a computer with bad ram ;) They didn't even touch on the critical issues at all, they just made a fanciful design and said, "here you are!"

    Some realities:
    The cost for even maintaining such a facility would be unbelievably staggering. Moving things off of earth is incredibly expensive. Moving an estimage of a few hundred tons of steel, glass, plastic, concrete, all sorts of things, is ludicrous. Then, transferring up all food, oxygen, water, new people, taking off old people, etc, the numbers just keep growing.

    The reality of the situation, is that you need a self-supporting colony before you can design a "hotel".

    First off, before you can do much of anything, you need a power source. On most thin or no-atmosphere planets and moons, this is best accomplished by solar power - not solar panels, by far - but by a field of (cheap) steel reflector dishes that track the sun and focus its light onto a single point. What you then have is an excelent temperature differential (between that point and the rock; on earth, power stations such as these use the air more often). Only the motors/control systems and the generator itself would need to be shipped from earth; the dishes are simple enough to make locally using temporary power (nuclear or other).

    Temporary power would, at first, control mining and component construction. Molds would undoubtably be shipped from earth. Equiptment would need to be mostly or completely automated - keeping a huge construction team of humans alive, away from earth, is expensive ;) We're talking automated mining, automated melting/refining, and automated molding. A milling machine would be useful, so they can adapt when something goes wrong by making a new part (it'd take days to get something from earth). Of course, these machines would need to be shipped up, too :) Construction equiptment would probably be best manned, as we still have a lot of trouble with computers percieving 3d spacial phenominae. Howeverm the construction of all of these devices (mostly AI research) would have immediate application here on Earth, as well, and thus, NASA (and other organizations) can help pay for their work.

    Construction itself has all sorts of hurdles. In addition to the numerous problems you'll see just from basic spacewalk-repairs, you'll also have the blanket of lunar sand to deal with, the need to construct completely air-tight structures away from earth, etc. The easiest way would be if you could mold mostly-complete structures and link them together via tunnels - but, then, you have a low cap on your room size. Even worse, on a body as low-G as the moon, you would definitely want artificial gravity, and thus need to have a base that can spin, if you plan on anyone staying there for a reasonable amount of time (and you will - maintaining a micro-society would require a lot of local personelle, from repairs, to expansions, to running equiptment, etc.)

    What sort of equiptment will you need to keep running? O2 generators. Water generators. Water recyclers. Food-related equiptment - a gigantic hydroponic greenhouse, its related heating, harvesting, water-filtering, air-regulation, etc, equiptment - food processing equiptment, etc. Heating and air filtering/balance maintinence for the personelle (many elements to keep the air having the proper distribution for a long period of time). Power generation, mining, and processing equiptment. All of the interconnections (pipes, cables, etc). Communications and computer equiptment. Radio communications. All the equiptment used in daily life. Etc.

    Only once you have a stable environment could it ever be economically feasable.

    -= rei =-

  • Then we can ship all of the fucking architects to the moon. Goddam bunch of pendantic morons, the lot.
  • There is enough super-rich idiots who don't know how to spend their money. Next, just think about it: 'EXPERIENCE LOW-GRAVITY SEX'. A major tourist attraction.

  • the Moon's low, one-sixth-Earth gravity, and the absence of wind were an architectural boon allowing a much more slender and fragile-looking building than would have been possible on Earth

    I don't know about you guys, but I'm not really attracted to slender and fragile looking buildings, especially if it's the only safe place on the whole ball of rock. Is it the architectural fashion now to create buildings that don't look safe?

  • What d'ya 'spose LA's... (Score:5)

    by dbc ( 135354 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:03PM (#86246)
    ... building deparment wants for permit and inspection fees?
  • ...the implications of meteors considering that the moon has no atmosphere?...
    --
    $HOME is where the .*shrc is
  • They came up with a design that's definitely not possible here, due to the existence of gravity, but what seems worrisome is that such a delicate-looking design better have some serious support. We are protected here on Earth from a great many things that fall out of the sky by our atmosphere, which consumes all but the most massive meteors. This design, I fear, won't stand to getting pelted by such a shower.

    Am I totally off base here?
  • ...a gigantic hydroponic greenhouse...

    Hey, if I was going to be on the moon for an extended period of time, this is a definite requirement! :-D

  • I for one wouldn't visit the restaurant in a hotel on the moon. It wouldn't have any atmosphere.

    Ba-doom boom :)

  • Just think about the resources required to sustain even the smallest 'luxury' hotel on earth. It would be very hard to accomplish especially since we can't even run a successful "Bio-Dome" experiment on Earth.

    There are extremely few examples of self-sufficiency on this Planet. The very nature of our society is to NOT be self-sufficient.

    When was the last time you grew something?

  • You'd need a way to store your solar power. There is a night on the moon, and it's about 2 weeks long. Gotta store power for it, or maybe use nuclear power.

    But power aside, the sheer cost of moving the crap up there is prohibitive. These are ridiculous stories. At least in the early '70s we were FLYING to the moon and we could talk about hotels with a straight face. Today it is obviously a pure fantasy and I'll be happy never to see something like this in the news again. Well, maybe not never... run a story 1 year before I can buy a freaking ticket, and not a second earlier.
  • There's only a handful of people in this world who are wealthy enough to blow money going up to space as a tourist at this point.

    Any good business plan, especially with such a small base of possible customers is to get repeat business... customers are expensive to find, in terms of time and money. You make more money off the top 30% than you to the bottom 70% usually.

    But all these... sure, someone might pay 20 million for a vacation in space. But once every who has the money and desire has gone once... Will anyone go to the moon on a regular basis?

  • Humans actually are the only species that cultivate our own food for consumption.

    Umm, nope... ants do too.

    ---

  • It doesn't look like it would fare to well against falling rocks. Imagine if you will: You sitting in the jacuzzi in the playboy suite, when you hear; crack, psssssssss.....

    Safer to use cameras and fake the windows then use the real thing when you haven't any atmosphere to slow down suborbital debree.

    This way you can build an enourmous hotel in a lava tube and give everyone the same incredible view. Or heck, you could reserve the better views for the highest paying customers.

  • A colony on the moon is less expensive than you think. You don't have to ship eveything to the moon (concrete, steel, Oxygen, etc). Comets and other phenomna have been smacking the moon nearly as long as they have been hitting the Earth. I am fairly certain, if you dug below the thermally dynamic surface layers, you would find material very similar to Earth rock. Embedded in that rock you would find silica and metals for structures, and CHON for life suport.

    Sending automated factories to mine and fabricate materials on the moon would be the safest, and in the long run cheapest way to proceed. Unfortunately, autonomy is the problem; the machine would have to perform it's task under autonomous or teleoperated conditions for a long time, other machines would repair and maintain the equipment. As long as the devices weren't built with planned obsolescence designed in, you could have a fairly sizable base ob operations once the right minerals are located and exploited.

    On the issue of gravity: If you fell off of the top floor of that hotel onto the crater floor, you would still make a respectable "SPLAT!". For one thing gravity may be one sixth, but without air to halt acceleration at terminal velocity, you would continue to accelerate and be going at quite a clip when you became one with the moon. Nobody really knows what gravitational acceleration is needed to maintain healthy bones and organs, if you are talking about spinning something on the surface, you might as well do it in orbit. It's pretty easy to get into orbit from the surface of the moon, since you don't have to push through miles of atmosphere.
    Go to Las Vegas and ask for a tour of one of the huge hotels: They have to import everything to make one of those buildings run. It's like a small city.
    Power generation could be from orbit. Since there is no atmosphere (actually there is some ionized sodium gas near the surface during the two week day) you could use a high power laser in orbit to pump one on the ground and use that laser in conjunction with thermocouples to generate power. Just don't fly throught the beam (bzzzzzt...)

    Considering the huge amount of money we throw away everyday on trivialities, whats a few billion here or there to design and deploy the machines needed to start the job. Then you could retrain all those telemarketers to become teleoperators and solve two problems at once.
  • And who exactly does one apply to for "building on the moon"? I mean, I know a crazy guy under a bridge who claims to own it... was he consulted?
  • I hate to break this to them, but take a look at the surface of the moon. The traditional word for it is "pockmarked." Without an atmosphere to protect it, the moon is constantly bombarded with minor meteor strikes.

    Am I saying it's like a Bruce Willis' movie? No. The last I heard, Armstrong's footprints were still up there undisturbed by weather. But I am saying it's not entirely unreasonable to expect big rocks moving at fairly remarkable speeds to crash into the roof of your structure some day. I would think it would be at least as likely as a tornado in Texas.

    You can live your whole life in Austin without ever seeing one. Then one day, two tornadoes meet and shake hands in the middle of town like they did in the early part of the last century.

    I would think that a structure on the moon would have to meet higher standards than those one Earth...

  • Well, you gotta tie a rope to our beauty contestants before u do a photo shoot anyway..

    Ooops..there goes our Miss Canada...allright..we are down to the final five..er..four contestants..
  • Click on the link and you would see a bridge (looks like one) with the name "Lunatic" on it..

    Kinda ironic..dont you think :)
  • By the time I'm relaxing in the cool shadow of the earth, I'll want my fiber spank channels fed into my wetjack. Oh wait, the latency on 2-way to the bordello AI is just a bit too large.
  • Damn cookie filter...

    Exactly. What happens once they run out of the little soaps and shampoos. The $40mil someone paid to get up there is going to piss them off even more for that poor service. How long will it take them to get another shipment in?

    To be perfectly serious, when you go into a hotel these days, they have a sign in the bathroom asking you to conserve water. Well, guess what? They're going to need a really big supply to conserve in the first place if they want to even get started. A whole lot of people are going to have to do a whole lot of peeing after holding their bladder from the ride up from earth in order to start up that water supply and someone better have a good sewage system in place to filter that. Without water this will remain a bad 3D render.

  • The usual setup (Score:3)

    by Papa Legba ( 192550 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:21PM (#86263)
    Will their be much point of installing vibratting beds in a hotel on the moon? What are the hotels going to do for extra revenue then? Kinda a long way to run spank cable....

  • The classic catch was not addressed (Score:3)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:17PM (#86264) Journal
    The catch on why only a selected few can even enter space is due to our reliance on primitive chemical based rockets. How are people going to get into the hotel?

    Or even how are they going to get the tools to the site to even began to construct the hotel?

    Rockets are dangerous, need to be manned by highly qualified astronaunts, and extremely expensive.

    I liked an older slashdot story which talked about a huge space elevator or stairway structure into space. From there, their would be less gravity and air friction, so the escape velocity would be alot less. It may even be possible (don't have a physiscs degree)to have a high speed rocket powered vehicle to meet the escape velocity requirements without special large rocket boosters like our current spaceshuttles. THe vehicle would resemble more of a concord jet then a space shuttle. We can carry large amounts of people into space from the elevator. Its the launchpad problem that we are dealing with.



  • probably a stupid question, but is there anything that actually creates water?

    all we seem to do on Earth is move it around...

  • pictures of the massive military shipyard next door? I'm sure when Nasa turns into a branch of the military, they're going to use the moon as a low-grav construction site.

    Also, don't forget the Jedi dojo's.. we'll need lots of those.
  • Quoting (a little bit out of order, but it helps me make an interesting point):
    Now, the low-G environment would benefit geriatrics and people with other problems as well.
    These folk can't guard themselves with their arms like most folk, and many are severely osteoporotic. In short, you drop 'em, they break. Literally.

    So how exactly, if they're so fragile, are we gonna send them up there? Last time I checked, getting up to orbit was highly strenous for the astronauts. We're talking big G's here.

    I understand your point, and i think you're right about taking care of them in low-G ambients, but until we get smoother rides up to orbit, I think it's a moot point.

    Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
  • Families will have to keep an eye on the children all the time so they don't go play outside, or explain to them very carefully that, yes, live human beings *can* boil at ambient temperatures ...
  • I'm going to venture a guess that the guy might have been making reference to materials' strength.
  • Sorry to burst Your bubble, but there is ice at the poles. The most recent modeled estimates put the quantity at 6.6 billion tons.

    This [nasa.gov] link has information on such ice, including where it came from, why it's important, and how it can survive.
  • Talk about a Motel 6000
  • and then you'd have to worry about all those pesky meteors making it to the surface for lack of an atmoshphere.

  • I can only hope... (Score:5)

    by Sarcasmooo! ( 267601 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @04:14PM (#86273)
    Cause if the lens flare on the moon is that horrible I'm staying home.
  • Dude, there are probably folks in your home town far more willing and credentialed to listen to bad thoughts than Slashdot. Hook up with one and get better.
  • If you check out the site, they refer to a program initiative called Lunex, which if I am not mistaken is what Steve Forbes called Linux.

    Who is backing this thing up anyway?

    --Joey
  • Forgot to mention that this [rombaut.nl] is an absolutely horrible rendition of a F.B.D. (free body diagram) that ANY college prof would gladly give a F on. The picture shows that only ONE side of the lever is affected by gravity, and the other side is mysteriously pushed AWAY from the moons surface. I don't remember the slashdot article about a brand new wacky focusable gravity that was found on the mooon. Anyone else?

  • Re:why can't this be built in full gravity? (Score:3)

    by Xwild ( 308492 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @03:48PM (#86277)
    Totally agree. And I do happen to have an engineering degree, and that statement made no sense to me either. The AMOUNT of gravity has absolutely no effect. Balance is balance is balance. If 2 people of equal weight stand on each end of a seesaw, it goes level. Doesn't matter if they both weigh 100 lbs, or if they look more like CowboyNeal. It is still gonna balance, be it on Earth, the Moon, or Jupiter. Its simple engineering. -my 2 cents
  • Looks like someone wasted about 5 minutes with Blender in making that picture.

    Honestly, how many people here thing that this is a scam?

  • Once you have a secure (on the lunar surface - hence cheap) water

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's impossible, since any water would boil and evaporate in the vacuum that is present at the lunar surface.

  • No. Too many people here are bitching that Slashdot is degenerating into a Tabloid. I remind you that, by and large, it is not the editors who write the submissions. They often just copy, verbatim, submitted posts. Get a grip, read the articles.


    the liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perception

  • ...that the first thing I thought when I saw the picture of a hotel on the moon was..."man, I bet in lunar gravity I could stand 30 feet away from the toilet while I take a leak!"

  • I would think that a structure on the moon would have to meet higher standards than those one Earth...

    Especially since the buildings are pressurized. You can't even let those small cracks appear which everybody on earth takes for granted when buildings settle on their foundations.

    And when the air starts leaking (and, at best, rips a huge hole out the wall), you can't just walk out of the building, lie yourself in a small crater and wait for the dust to settle ;-)
  • When I saw this, I thought of something my girlfriend said to me today. She's studying architecture, and I asked her on a whim if they would do any projects for buildings on the moon.

    I thought that she would make fun of me, but she said that a group of students in Darmstadt, Germany (we both study in Wiesbaden) are really working on it. They're currently working on a shower which is a big metal tub, that attracts errant water drops electrostatically. (Or something like that).

    Now that Denis Tito has been in space and the first signs of the commercialising of space are showing the space transportation companies would be better off if they could make the journey for their paying customers as comfortable as possible.

    And I'm sure every architecht would laugh with glee at the thought of decreased gravity and the lack of weather. I can hear my girl now: "huge arches, hihih! And glass roofs! And bristly things poking out everywhere! HAHAA"
  • The two previous /. stories on space elevators (here [slashdot.org] & here [slashdot.org]) simply point to the fact that materials science is the only thing that has to "catch up" to kill off chemical-based rockets as the best solution.

    With these (diamondoid) materials, building a long mag-driven runway a few miles up would actually be safer than a full-scale skyhook, since this platform wouldn't crash-wrap around the planet if it failed at the wrong place. :-)

  • "Luna" is actaully the word for moon in many languages (at least in Russian it is.) Also, in Russian the word "lunatic" reffers to someone who stays up and does strange stuff when there's a full moon (not in the English sense of a completely wacko person.) This term was taken on by many Russia science fiction writers as someone who lives on the moon. (Ofcourse I don't know about any other languages.) Draw your own conclusions from that...
    ---
  • What we need is a nice design for a size 23 city on alpha centauri, under the wise management of Prokhor Zacharov, of course.

    Remember, when you are downloading MP3's, you are downloading communism!!!
  • Hasn't this been planned for before? It seems every year or so there are more plans for colonizing the moon. Just another can of worms to open...
  • There's nothing wrong with it being just a playful idea. Getting hung up on the practicalities of such an enterprise using extant technology is like saying that we might as well never dream...

  • In this Cross section [rombaut.nl] I couldn't help but notice the label "flying zone". At first I assumed this is where spacecraft bringing supplies would land, but you wouldn't think they would have spacecraft land in the middle of the spire. So I wonder... maybe they have something in mind like Heinlein's flying chamber... where people strap on oversized bird wings and learn to fly like birds with the reduced G. If so, that alone would be worth the cost of the trip =P


    /* echo Mhbqnrnes Stbjr | tr [a-y] [b-z]
  • While it is true that g (local gravitational constant) is factored out of the torque equilibrium equations, the sheer on the lever arm structure IS dependent on g. Imagine the hotel as a light wooden baton jimmied under a really heavy rock with a fulcrum. As you push down on the baton, you are simulating an increase in g (not quite, as you would have to push down on every chunk of mass of the baton, but if you push from the center of gravity of the exposed piece, it's a decent approximation). Obviously, a sufficiently strong (simulated) force of gravity will break the baton/building. Anyway, at the rate Space Exploration is going, The Diamond Age will have arrived by the time we're building hotels on the moon, so we'll already have this thing on Earth.
  • A few people have commented on the meteor fear, with the moon's battered surface being the example of fear. Most of the moon's major craters are from a long-long time ago (I forget the estimates 3-4 Billion years I think, during the formation of the solar system). The reason why they're there is there is no weathering on the moon. And, of course, our pretty atmosphere doesn't do to much to a big comet coming in at 42 km/s from the outer solar system.

  • alien1: Hey baby

    alien2: Awww I've missed you sooooo much!

    alien3: oh for goodness sake, GET A ROOM!

  • Take plenty of Cleaning Gel, Chilli Sauce and a big russian dictionary. You should be fine then
  • An esthetically interesting concept, but not very practical for Lunar conditions. Lunar habitats would best be constructed in, not on, Luna. Think about the serious temperature differences between the lunar day and night. And yes, meteors - Luna gets peppered with the small stuff that we see as 'shooting stars.' A hole in you pressure suit can ruin your day.

    Now why live in Luna in the first place? Think about the possibilities for retirement homes, geriatric facilities and similar services. Also, those of us who've spent too much time tending the disabled --- meaning nonambulatory, no use of their arms and legs, need to turned in bed every 2 hours because they can't roll themselves over --- can see tremendous benefits. For one, at one-sixth G, even a bare rock floor is more comfortable than the best bed on Earth! And when you have to transfer someone in and out of a wheelchair a dozen or more times daily, get them in and out of the bathtub, etc., you have a lot of opportunities to drop someone. Not good. These folk can't guard themselcves with their arms like most folk, and many are severely osteoporotic. In short, you drop 'em, they break. Literally.

    Now, the low-G environment would benefit geriatrics and people with other problems as well. Say people with long term heart problems, MS, ALS, CP, myasthenia gravis, etc. We really need to colonize the place. I'll damn sure invest in rehab facilities of that sort! And remember, you WILL be old and frail someday. Life can suck when you're 80 years old, and you're biggest fear is falling and cracking a hip!

    Sure there are issues to be addressed before we can move in. Water, for one. But there may well be ice to be mined. O2 can be liberated from the rock (silicon dioxide). Power is everywhere on Luna. And being at the bottom of the much shallower Lunar gravity well makes it much easier to mount excpeditions to the asteroids, where all the lovely raw material for orbital manafacturing are waiting for us... We could do this today (or even twenty years ago), so why are we still Earthbound?

    Nuff Sed,

    MalTheElder

    "It's raining soup, and we haven't discovered buckets yet."

    --Robt. A. Heinlein

  • Theoretically, the design would work, but there are so many better ways. The three simplest points are: 1: The structure would be under extreme sheer stress at the focal point. (The idea behind most buildings construction is to spread the load so one can get away with less expensive materials and a lesser amount of them as well). An anology that would work is using a cheap lug wrench to break loose lugs nuts on a car. That thing bends before you break that nut loose. Imagine the foundation doing that. 2. Okay, say the frame holds up. What's to keep the small, buried end from busting up through the porous, lightweight, psuedo-volcanic rock of which I assume the moon is made? I didn't see any bracing there on that design. I guess we're supposed to assume.... (This point is also valid if you believe that the moon is made of one of those really stinky, expensive types of cheeses.) 3. Fine, the frame holds, and the stone/cheese also holds. That hotel looks to be just stuck in the rock, what's to keep it from rocking as people move? Seeing as how 10-15 people weigh about a ton, if you have 10-15 thousand people staying there, you could have an unbalanced wieght of about a thousand tons, which would unbalance most structures that are anchored down. Due to all the other points made here, a moon hotel is unfeasible at this time. Aside from that, this design is awful.

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