What would be needed to put a manufacturing base on the moon?

[Betonhaus]

If you wanted to put a manufacturing base on the moon, say to build housing, space stations and ships, and expand the manufacturing base itself, what would be required? What would be the restrictions in materials used, and how would processes change?

I could see them building massive solar arrays used for electricity and to heat smelting ovens, and magnesium might be used more for structures that will never be pressurized with a habitable atmosphere.

 

[Second Sun]

Solar wouldn't work, since it's dark for 14 days. All moon sci-fi relies on fusion being possible since helium-3 can be mined there. But fusion for power generation's probably bunk, so chances are it'll never happen.

Ceres is the best actual bet for a colony. The hurdle is getting there quickly enough before radiation kills you. Theoretically possible with nuclear propulsion, but everyone's too squeamish to prototype/test such things.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

and how would processes change?

One essential tech would need totally need remaking - Welding the most common processes currently rely on Electrical Arks that require an atmosphere (Forge Welding does too as does flame but they are not suitable for this sort of manufacturing), you would need to do something like Electron Beam welding and that's theoretical or incredibly slow at the moment - Friction / Stir welding would work the same but I've got minimal experience with it so can't comment much on it.

Machine's would have to be made insitue as manufacturing machines weigh a lot, and we'd see less "Reductive" processes used i.e. chucking a bit of stock up in a Lathe / Mill / 5 Axis etc and removing excess till you've carved out your part.
We'd see more Additive manufacturing like 3D printing, Powder Sintering being the order of the day and reduction used as a finishing process or for parts that can't be done via an additive process but those processes being cut back as low as possible, and an explosion of something like Wire EDM tech.

I could see Ceramics being used more as a larger scale, especially if power generation can be fairly large scale taking stuff like Lunar Regolith cramming it into a mould and heating it up under pressure till it fuzes together a bit like those Bricks Ellon was trying to shill when he was talking about the Tunnels he was enamoured with for a while, they could be made fairly cheaply and be used as a bulk building material / filler for building projects.

 

[The Backwards Man]

Oxygen tanks for starters

 

[Betonhaus]

Solar wouldn't work, since it's dark for 14 days. All moon sci-fi relies on fusion being possible since helium-3 can be mined there. But fusion for power generation's probably bunk, so chances are it'll never happen

I don't think we can count on theoretical technology, and we may not be able to ship exotic materials reliably to the moon. Solar power may prove to be necessary, even if it means that the plant regularly has 14 day shutdowns where it has to rely on weaker power sources. It should be possible to plan the operations around that schedule.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I think a lot of Moon base economics don't make sense or are otherwise centered on the idea of self-sufficiency, because while rocket launches are expensive, the only reason there would ever be a lot of rockets going to the Moon is for a huge ass mining operation. All those mines in the middle of nowhere in Nunavut or Siberia or wherever aren't building their own mine carts or setting up a sawmill to get the lumber for the buildings, they're paying the Ice Road Truckers to ship it in. Yes, rocket launches are expensive, but specialization and comparative advantage has been a basic concept in economics for over 200 years. Earth ships the Moon water, supplies, and tourists in exchange for gold, iridium, and Instagram selfies. That sort of thing only breaks down once you start hitting the point of thousands (if not more) people on the Moon and genuine dependence on lunar resources--then you'd want more self-sufficiency so the complex could expand itself.

Hell, if not for the fact that melting ore produces oxygen (usually, IIRC most minerals are oxides) and the lack of pollution (nobody wants to live near a smelter), it probably wouldn't even be worth doing much processing on the Moon. Just send a giant chunk of lunar minerals back to Earth and we'll process them here.

Solar wouldn't work, since it's dark for 14 days. All moon sci-fi relies on fusion being possible since helium-3 can be mined there. But fusion for power generation's probably bunk, so chances are it'll never happen.

The Moon has no air, making solar energy storage via flywheels or solar thermal power (i.e. tapping a heat engine at night) far more efficient than on Earth. Although just to be safe, you might have a nuclear reactor running to keep the lights on and only run the important operations for 14 days (or so) at a time.

Fusion power recorded a net gain the other year and advances in superconducting and cheaper magnets will probably make it economically viable at some point. I dunno if helium-3 is ever possible though since using it in a fusion reaction is an order of magnitude more difficult than the D-T reaction current fusion research is focused on.

 

[Shig O'nella]

Water. Lots of it.

 

[Betonhaus]

Water. Lots of it.

Luckily there's some on the moon

 

[Anti Snigger]

One thing that would throw a wrench in things would be the lack of an atmosphere. Almost no combustion, lack of oxide on metals allowing metal to weld to itself, etc.

 

[Betonhaus]

One thing that would throw a wrench in things would be the lack of an atmosphere. Almost no combustion, lack of oxide on metals allowing metal to weld to itself, etc.

Wouldn't that make welding easier? Maybe you could spray a fine dust of the same material, then just heat and temper if needed

 

[Anti Snigger]

Wouldn't that make welding easier? Maybe you could spray a fine dust of the same material, then just heat and temper if needed

the oxides prevent contact welding, and aluminium oxide is vital to its strength

 

[Named User]

It would take having the first real manned moon mission.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

Solar wouldn't work, since it's dark for 14 days.

I mean, you could run cables.

Machine's would have to be made insitue as manufacturing machines weigh a lot, and we'd see less "Reductive" processes used i.e. chucking a bit of stock up in a Lathe / Mill / 5 Axis etc and removing excess till you've carved out your part.

Think bigger. Machine tools would need complete re-engineering, because a major reason for the weight of machine tools is their weight.

That is to say, the fall off of tensile strength due to the gravity of a structure from its own mass. On the moon you have 1/6th of that, so you ought to be able to enjoy a degree of rigidity in a machine tool that DOESNT weigh tons. When you want something with the hardness and wear resistance of tungsten carbide, there doesn’t need to be as much steel holding it.

Overall I think the change in gravity would alter the logistics and economics more than the lack of atmosphere. Some setup for oxygen generation could definitely be found, though I am not familiar enough with chemistry to conjecture on its efficiency..

But what you’d be doing on the moon as opposed to on earth would be things that are difficult under gravity.


Most likely, further space ship manufacture. Would it be easier to make a solar sail on earth, or on the moon where it wouldn’t blow around? Though I’m a faggot because that pertains to atmosphere, lol

 

[Angry Alt Right Nerd]

Robots, you don't need housing, food, water, or air, 99% of your logistical issues are immediately solved.

 

[Betonhaus]

Robots, you don't need housing, food, water, or air, 99% of your logistical issues are immediately solved.

Except robots are dumb, unless they're being remotely piloted. You don't want a robot AI that won't know to hit the e-stop because the machine is about to fail badly

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

56 Boost for the mine
Don’t remember for the rest

Rocket launches are only a problem starting out. You make fuel up there from ice if they can actually do that. Then it’s cheap, at least relatively, moving things around. Can also use systems of railguns to propel payloads between different celestial bodies. Getting things down to Earth is easy, you drop it in a controlled way.

Only stuff going up is that which you cannot make up there. Small crews to engineers to babysit the drones. Work one “tour” up there and you’re done for life. Extremely competitive, high pressure “tournament” style job.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Rocket launches are only a problem starting out. You make fuel up there from ice if they can actually do that. Then it’s cheap, at least relatively, moving things around. Can also use systems of railguns to propel payloads between different celestial bodies. Getting things down to Earth is easy, you drop it in a controlled way.

Only stuff going up is that which you cannot make up there. Small crews to engineers to babysit the drones. Work one “tour” up there and you’re done for life. Extremely competitive, high pressure “tournament” style job.

The water thing doesn't really make sense when you think of it. If you have the launch capacity for a moon base, why would you waste precious resources on making water (which cannot be exported to Earth) compared to increasing the capital of the base, like for instance more machines to mine more gold or process it for easier shipping back home.

Is there any paper that studies this from an economic viewpoint, or is this just some meme of aerospace engineers trying to sell people on space colonization? Let's say it's Elon Musk's Starship and my launch cost is $10/kg and I can bring 100 tons to the Moon and take 100 tons back. To bring 100 tons of water to the Moon costs me a little over 1 million dollars. Using a gold price of $65,000/kg, a cargo full of pure gold (which is a little less than the yearly output of the two largest gold mines on the planet) is worth $6.5 billion dollars. Even if only 1% of that is gold and the gold price crashes by 90%, that's still $6.5 million dollars. Why would I want to waste my time bringing junk to set up water infrastructure when the logical option is expanding my infrastructure to mine more gold and better process it so my cargo is more pure?

If you're using railguns in space, you need a way to slow down which means some sort of propellant. Could be heated with a giant laser on one end (possibly requiring gigawatts of power). Or you need a giant runway to magnetically decelerate which means a fuckton of rare elements for the magnets. Or some sturdy as fuck supermaterial that can survive slamming into solid rock at several kilometers per second. I think the latter might be possible but not for humans since the g-forces would turn everyone into tomato sauce.