At Home on the Moon

No man has yet landed on the moon, and none is likely to for a long time. This dull fact does not keep interplanetary enthusiasts from planning what they will do when they get there. In the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Draftsman Paul L. Sowerby solemnly furrows his brow about lunar construction methods. In this small field alone* he finds enough practical difficulties to make the glittering lunar cities of the space romancers look like hashish visions.

Lunar building contractors, Sowerby concedes, would have to cope with odd conditions. Surveyors, wearing space suits, might have trouble looking through their instruments. He suggests that the eye piece of their transits and levels be built into their helmets. When used in shadows, leveling staffs would have to carry their own lights, because shadows on the moon are pitch black.

Underground City. Such difficulties are minor. The moon has feeble gravitation, which would be a help in moving from place to place, but the lack of atmosphere presents a problem to both architect and builder. Sowerby does not favor the large pressurized domes above the surface that are so popular with space illustrators. In the vacuum on the moon, the upward pressure of their interior atmospheres would be enormous. A domed "tent" only 10 ft. in diameter would pull against its moorings with a force of 50 tons. If big enough (100 ft. across) to hold a fair-sized habitation, its upward pull would be 5,000 tons, and its structure would have to be heavy. Domes, Sowerby thinks, should be kept small, and the bulk of the city should be underground, to stay put.

First step of the lunar pioneers should be to look for natural caves or volcanic shafts that could be filled with imported air and made habitable. If such caves are lacking, a good place to found a city would be the "Straight Wall," a vertical cliff 500 ft. high to the lunar north of Tycho crater. Tunnels could be cut into its face more easily than they could be sunk from the surface. They should run about 50 or 60 ft. below the ground. At this depth their atmosphere, exerting an upward pressure of 1,440 Ibs. per sq. ft., would balance the weight of the rock overhead. Props would not be necessary.

Cement would be needed in large amounts, and it would be advantageous not to have to bring it from the earth. If the moon has rocks containing the equivalent of lime and clay, cement might conceivably be made from them. There is a chance. Sowerby thinks, that the fierce heat of the unshielded sunlight may have disintegrated lunar rocks into ready-powdered oxides. This should simplify concrete-making in one small detail.

Silvered Homes. All surface structures, of course, would have to be protected from the terrible heat and cold of the lunar day & night. They should be covered with some reflecting metal. Exterior domes might be of steel, plated with silver, or better yet, of glass cloth, sealed with plastic inside and sprayed with silver outside. Even if small, they would have to be anchored strongly, and the expansion caused by heat and cold would probably rock their anchor bolts loose.

Concludes Sowerby: "The possibility of extensive surface construction, as portrayed frequently in imaginative drawings, is exceedingly remote."

* Even if space flight is mastered, the logistics of earth-moon transport are not encouraging. According to the calculations of one optimistic authority, Dr. Wernher von Braun, more than 2,000 Ibs. of fuel must be burned to land each pound of cargo on the moon. If half the fuel is hydrazine, at $2.50 a lb., the fuel cost alone of transporting a 10-ton machine to the moon would be more than $50 million. The space vehicles themselves would add even more to the cost.

Many such machines would be needed. To survive at all, pioneers on the hostile moon would have to carry with them the earth's highest technology, including a bountiful energy source, repair facilities, a well-equipped hospital, a great array of tools and scientific instruments. Air, food and water would have to be brought from the earth. Most of the lunar city's structure and all of its supplies and equipment would cost, delivered on the moon, at least ten times as much as gold.

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