Chinese Astronauts May Build a Base Inside a Lunar Lava Tube (universetoday.com) 75
According to Universe Today, China may utilize lunar caves as potential habitats for astronauts on the Moon, offering defense against hazards like radiation, meteorites, and temperature variations. From the report: Different teams of scientists from different countries and agencies have studied the idea of using lava tubes as shelter. At a recent conference in China, Zhang Chongfeng from the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology presented a study into the underground world of lava tubes. Chinese researchers did fieldwork in Chinese lava tubes to understand how to use them on the Moon. According to Zhang, there's enough similarity between lunar and Earthly lava tubes for one to be an analogue of the other. It starts with their two types of entrances, vertical and sloped. Both worlds have both types.
Most of what we've found on the Moon are vertical-opening tubes, but that may be because of our overhead view. The openings are called skylights, where the ceiling has collapsed and left a debris accumulation on the floor of the tube directly below it. Entering through these requires either flight or some type of vertical lift equipment. Sloped entrances make entry and exit much easier. It's possible that rovers could simply drive into them, though some debris would probably need to be cleared. According to Zhang, this is the preferred entrance that makes exploration easier. China is prioritizing lunar lava tubes at Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) and Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fecundity) for exploration.
China is planning a robotic system that can explore caves like the one in Mare Tranquillitatis. The primary probe will have either wheels or feet and will be built to adapt to challenging terrain and to overcome obstacles. It'll also have a scientific payload. Auxiliary vehicles can separate from the main probe to perform more reconnaissance and help with communications and "energy support." They could be diversified so the mission can meet different challenges. They might include multi-legged crawling probes, rolling probes, and even bouncing probes. These auxiliary vehicles would also have science instruments to study the lunar dust, radiation, and the presence of water ice in the tubes. China is also planning a flight-capable robot that could find its way through lava tubes autonomously using microwave and laser radars. "China's future plan, after successful exploration, is a crewed base," the report adds. "It would be a long-term underground research base in one of the lunar lava tubes, with a support center for energy and communication at the tube's entrance. The terrain would be landscaped, and the base would include both residential and research facilities inside the tube."
"[R]egardless of when they start, China seems committed to the idea. Ding Lieyun, a top scientist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told the China Science Daily that 'Eventually, building habitation beyond the Earth is essential not only for all humanity's quest for space exploration but also for China's strategic needs as a space power.'"
Most of what we've found on the Moon are vertical-opening tubes, but that may be because of our overhead view. The openings are called skylights, where the ceiling has collapsed and left a debris accumulation on the floor of the tube directly below it. Entering through these requires either flight or some type of vertical lift equipment. Sloped entrances make entry and exit much easier. It's possible that rovers could simply drive into them, though some debris would probably need to be cleared. According to Zhang, this is the preferred entrance that makes exploration easier. China is prioritizing lunar lava tubes at Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) and Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fecundity) for exploration.
China is planning a robotic system that can explore caves like the one in Mare Tranquillitatis. The primary probe will have either wheels or feet and will be built to adapt to challenging terrain and to overcome obstacles. It'll also have a scientific payload. Auxiliary vehicles can separate from the main probe to perform more reconnaissance and help with communications and "energy support." They could be diversified so the mission can meet different challenges. They might include multi-legged crawling probes, rolling probes, and even bouncing probes. These auxiliary vehicles would also have science instruments to study the lunar dust, radiation, and the presence of water ice in the tubes. China is also planning a flight-capable robot that could find its way through lava tubes autonomously using microwave and laser radars. "China's future plan, after successful exploration, is a crewed base," the report adds. "It would be a long-term underground research base in one of the lunar lava tubes, with a support center for energy and communication at the tube's entrance. The terrain would be landscaped, and the base would include both residential and research facilities inside the tube."
"[R]egardless of when they start, China seems committed to the idea. Ding Lieyun, a top scientist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, told the China Science Daily that 'Eventually, building habitation beyond the Earth is essential not only for all humanity's quest for space exploration but also for China's strategic needs as a space power.'"
cool (Score:3)
glories.
i see a flaw in beijings plan.
moon bases are found on the moon
Re:cool (Score:5, Informative)
China has landed a rover on the moon already. They have their own space station. They know what they are doing.
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The housing thing is often misunderstood.
Right now a lot of Chinese people live in multi-generational households. They are expected to want to get their own places as their wealth increases. That's why the government built entire new cities, in the expectation that people would move there for work and to own their own place.
There was a huge panic about it almost a decade ago, with photos of rows of empty tower blocks and multi-lane highways. "Abandoned" subway stations to nowhere. It's now all over-subscrib
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You can just get a visa and go there to confirm it yourself if you like.
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Re: cool (Score:2)
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Well, that sounds like an official CCP party line, and sorry but the party has lied so much they don't have any credibility left. ."
As opposed to the Republican Propaganda you just spewed? THEY didn't declare elections were not decided by the voters, as the "R" party did.
So who is publishing nonsense?
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What are they - some sort of communists?
If you do things like that, how are you going to keep people in terror of homelessness, disease and poverty in order to keep their noses to the grindstone - following the American dream, whether they want to or not.
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interesting.
what is step 2
Re: cool (Score:2)
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Re: cool (Score:1)
Go in then...find one. You can't can you?
So, they're not found on the moon, yet. That's why they're planning on building one.
Re: cool (Score:2)
*click*
"Never has been."
Symmetry (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Flying in lunar caves, hey? (Score:2)
Finally, one small step for mankind...to the stars (Score:1)
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Finally, one small step for mankind....to the stars. Analogy, gotta walk before you can run. Going straight to Mars was / still is a stupid idea. U.S. dropped the ball when we quit sending men to the moon. Technology wise, maybe we weren't ready to do more then. Build habitable bases to keep extending beyond our solar system. We're killing our planet so the sooner we can leave will mean that the human race will survive. It won't be the gov't that helps gets us back, it will be the billionaires with a vision. There is infinite resources just waiting. Whoever does that will be a zillionaire ! I watched the moon walks, then it stopped.....that was a sad day !
I doubt the moon will make anyone a zillionaire. The first person / company to perfect asteroid mining, and better, finding asteroids worth mining? That person / company is gonna be so wealthy it'll make Bezos and Musk host a pity party for each other on one of their rockets. I doubt I'll live to see that happen, as slowly as we're moving on getting back to the moon. But I do agree that the moon is the first real step off planet for us. Habitable bases, even if not permanently manned, will teach us a LOT ab
Re:Finally, one small step for mankind...to the st (Score:5, Informative)
The moon itself probably won't make anyone a zillionaire any time soon - but in a gold rush the smart, reliable money is in selling shovels. And that's where the moon comes in.
The regolith is rich in oxygen and industrial materials, and without an atmosphere it only takes a couple kW/kg worth of kinetic energy to launch supplies to the asteroid belt, no hideously inefficient rocket engines required except to circularize your orbit when you get there.
And we've likely already found the asteroids most worth mining - most of the mass of the asteroid belt is concentrated into just a few handfuls of asteroids, with 16 Psyche being by far the largest of the M-class that are likely rich in metals and other heavy/valuable elements. I think 22 Kalliope is next, but with a mean radius of only 75km compared to Psyche's 223km it only has around 4% of the mass.
And in the long term? Well, the moon presumably has a core rich in heavy elements as well, potentially without the extreme temperatures that make deep mining impossible on Earth. (Though at an estimated 1000-1500C it'd still be a real challenge to mine the core itself) And with the moon being something like 80x the mass of the entire asteroid belt, if we can get to it there's likely to be far more wealth waiting there than in the Belt.
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We aren't ready for that, and the asteroids probably will have their own sources of raw minerals.
It's still a really good idea. It may not be economic itself, but it's a necessary step along the way. That's where we'll develop and prove the "nearly closed ecosystem" that we need to live in space. We'll also discover if 1/6 g is sufficient to maintain health. (If so, that would make rotation for gravity a lot more feasible.)
Everybody seems to want to get everything done all in one step, but no major deve
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the smart, reliable money is in selling shovels
You have this right, but misapply the idea. The people making money will be those getting the contracts to build the gear for lunar mining, not the people doing the mining since with reusable boosters with a reuse factor on the order of a 100 (we are up to 17 right now) launching supplies from Earth will be cheaper than trying to do extremely remote mine development, excavation and processing in a hard vacuum, without repair depots, or consumable supplies on hand.
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Let's take the gold rush. Many of the people who made money were selling picks and shovels to those coming out west to hunt for gold. That worked, but it worked for a reason: People were coming out West to make their fortune. They either were coming out West to leave behind a life they didn't want and could do so because land
Re: Finally, one small step for mankind...to the s (Score:2)
Re: Finally, one small step for mankind...to the s (Score:2)
But the real problem was costs esp launch, and lack of partners. ISS was about learning to survive space, keeping Russian engineers busy, and teaching other western nations about space.
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This geologist doesn't think so, and none of my colleagues who I've discussed it with in the shift hand-over hold out much hope for that.
What minerals, in what contexts, do you think are likely to be found?
At least they're burying themselves. (Score:2)
Chinese team opts to commit suicide.
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That's probably not wrong. There are usually problems when you push a new development. Failure to accept that was what killed the US manned space program.
highly dangerous (Score:3, Interesting)
While caves seem a naturally ideal way to jump start a lunar base, it's a very dangerous notion.
Certainly the Chinese team will coat the inside of the tube with a heavy sealant, but the problem isn't just pressure and air loss.
The problem with using a cave for a base is the structural ignorance. Instead of building your structure with articles of known strength and composition, you're relying on natural geology. There could be cleave lines, hidden fracture, rotten rock, or even whole other caves millimeters past your "supposedly solid wall" waiting for the slightest pressure, damage, or moisture infiltration to collapse.
Far, far better to excavate, build a known, designed structure, then bury it in regolith. Then everything is a known quantity.
Caves will be useful, yes.
They can be a shortcut to a base, yes.
Whether they're safe is completely random.
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or even whole other caves millimeters past your "supposedly solid wall"
We can measure the moonquakes due to landers expanding and contracting due to the heat changes. No way we couldn't just tap on the rock and measure the reflections.
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Just as well that you put your AC name to it, since you couldn't be (easily) called upon to cash those chips.
Remember, you're going to need to position a number of "geophones" onto the wall of the cave in several locations (the more the better for better resolution in size, "depth" (into the wall ; away from the line from sonic source to midpoint of the detector array), and depth uncertainty. So it's not going to be you running up to the
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Actually, the better solution would be to deploy the seismic array you were already planning to carry on the surface, to search of voids around the "skylight". Considerably safer way of evaluating a potential cavern site (in terms of approximate volume, at least) than actually ent
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> While caves seem a naturally ideal way to jump start a lunar base, it's a very dangerous notion.
It's all very dangerous. It's less dangerous than other options. Over time, any exposed structure or manually excavated void are subject to deterioration. Using a small section of a moon lava tunnel is reasonable, given the current state of knowledge regarding terrestrial lava tunnel stability. Humanity does have some extensive experience encountering and qualifying lava tunnels. It's not necessary to use th
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Better here implies that it's even possible. We don't know that we can build a structure on the moon that's better than a lava tube. It will need to include sufficient radiation shielding to protect against a major solar storm. That means you're going to need to bury it a bit of a distance. At a wild guess, 3 ft. would generally suffice, but that burying the top of the structure 3 ft.
The lava tube option sounds a lot more practical, even if it does call "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" to mind.
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We have to find suitable lava tubes first, and then there is the problem of effective access to the entrance. We can dig a hole and bury a station anywhere we want, and the surface is enormously easier to survey.
The position that a digging a 2 m deep cavity to install a structure and piling 1-2 m of regolith on top is a mysterious activity fraught with peril, and maybe even in impossible while finding a usable, accessible lava tube and getting the structure installed underground is "a lot more practical" is
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It's my understanding that we have already located lava tubes on the moon, though I don't think we've so much as examined them closely with sonar.
And I'm not taking TMIAHM seriously. Even though by the time humans start building there Adam Selene will be a lot more plausible. There are multiple reasons that TMIAHM wouldn't work. But lots of pieces from it could work. (But I'm going to wait a bit before I assume there will be lava tubes with lots of ice in them.)
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It's less dangerous than other options. Over time, any exposed structure or manually excavated void are subject to deterioration.
Say what? A mechanically excavated ("manually"? No, guys in spacesuits with shovels ain't doing it.) pit is "subject to deterioration"? By what lunar magic does this occur when pits dug on Earth remain intact for millenia even with atmosphere and rain and such? Tell me - what is this process of deterioration, how does it work?
Digging a pit in the surface regolith, installing a base structure then piling the loose regolith on top is far less dangerous than spelunking lunar caves, much less then trying to bu
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For values of anywhere that are reasonably flat, and have a deep enough regolith.
Digging a pit, building your base, then moving the debris back over it requires moving the debris twice. I'd build my base while establishing a conveyor belt system to where you're going to be scooping the regolith from, and move the regolith once to provide the radiation shielding. I'd probably incorporate a sizing system somewhere in the transport equip
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Re: highly dangerous (Score:2)
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At least one of the people in this conversation - me - has been a caver for pushing 40 years, and has spent enough time looking at the precariously poised boulders that we optimistically called "the roof" to count this to be a significant problem.
That said, by looking to go in through a collapsed flank of the tube, over boulders pounded into place by the impact of their slightly later-falling brethren, does mitigate the hazards considerab
Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
When they announce an actual lander mission to explore one of these features, that would be actual progress. Until then, it's another study of a study of a potential concept.
Don't think the article suggested it was (Score:1)
Re: Nothing New (Score:2)
Propaganda (Score:1, Informative)
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To be fair, he's not totally wrong. China is laissez-faire in many unfortunate ways. But when they set their minds to doing something well, they can also do that.
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Re: Propaganda (Score:2)
Dreams and Reality (Score:2)
Lava tubes and sharp rocks (Score:1)
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On the earth, lava tubes have many sharp points. Hopefully moon architects take this into account when creating habitable lava tube living quarters. Don't puncture your air tent.
I doubt they're planning to work with the bare rock (though that makes better TV/movie moon bases).
The lava tubes have two big advantages.
First, they mean you're surrounded by a mass of rock that protects you from things like micro-asteroids (or meteorites?) and radiation.
Second, they provide a solid foundation to build against, and so if you do get a leak it's buffered and you don't get explosive decompression.
No idea what they're planning, but my quick layman's thought is you excavate a bit to make the qu
'some type of vertical lift equipment' (Score:2)
On earth, this can be designed as a 'rope'.
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I have never seen a rope lift anything. It just lies there. There has to be machinery attached to the rope, and clearance so that the path up and down is clear, which likely requires a bridge of tower-like support structure, which in turn needs to be provided with a suitable foundation. Sort of how moving things up and down in quarries and mines are done here on Earth. But, yeah, just say "rope". That'll do the job by itself.
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As if. C'mon, man, live a little.
What a shockingly new idea (Score:3)
One I saw in supplement sections in the Sunday paper in the late fifties/early sixties.
Re: What a shockingly new idea (Score:2)
Yeah. So what? (Score:2)