The sensible plan to create a Moon base.
Contract for a nuclear powered mining robot to dig a large, horizontal shaft in a Lunar crater. Almost entirely known technologies. A tunnel of this sort provides radically reduced needs for protection from vacuum, cosmic and enhanced radiation on the surface, extremes of heat and cold, and the extremely abrasive Lunar dust.
It also means that entire surface habitats do not have to be brought with each mission, because of the harsh and destructive conditions, so far more supplies and equipment can be brought.
So from this point forward, Lunar missions would be *cumulative*, building on each other, instead of “one shots”.
The robot itself would not have to be fast, just methodical. Mining just an inch or two of rock face a day, then at intervals drilling ceiling holes for reinforcing rod, as is normally done in hard rock horizontal shaft mining. Rubble falling in front of the robot would be transported on a long, conveyor belt “tail”, out the tunnel entrance to a waste pile.
Then, while exiting the completed tunnel, the robot would spray the interior with sealant, against micro-fissures.
The lander used by the robot would be designed to be cannibalized for self sealing double pressure doors for the tunnel entry, and later, pre-wired modular walls, floor and ceiling. The tunnel then could be tested for pressure and heat retention.
The robot would then mine any secondary tunnels and even a cistern for Lunar ice, until astronauts arrived, then its nuclear reactor would provide extended power for the Moon base.
The entire process would take a year or two, but after that the cost of Lunar missions would drop considerably, and as more and more tunnels were mined, with each mission it would be improved until it could be used for extended stay research purposes, much like the Antarctic base.
Contract for a nuclear powered mining robot to dig a large, horizontal shaft in a Lunar crater
Nuclear powered, like a nuclear powered submarine (reactor) or a nuclear powered space probe? (nuclear thermionic generation)
transported on a long, conveyor belt “tail”, out the tunnel entrance to a waste pile
So now we have a nuclear powered robot, and a long industrial conveyor belt. how much to you think this would weigh (or more accurately mass)?
even a cistern for Lunar ice,
How much lunar ice (if any) do you think there is?
you then say
The entire process would take a year or two,
but you previously stated
at an inch or two a day
This leads to a tunnel from 365 inches (30 feet long) to a max of 120 feet in two years. DO you seriously think that this is adequate?
The sensible plan to create a Moon base.
At what cost? How much do you think this will cost? A "sensible" plan to create a moon base is the very definition of an oxymoron.
And for what? NASA Has shown that the composition of the moon is nothing remarkable - rocks and dirt. If you want cold rocks and dirt with some ice nearby, then there is Antartica. Two enormous advantages over the moon. It has air, and the cost to get a kilogram of equipment there is conservatively about 5 orders of magnitude LESS than to get to the moon