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Still, moon has some gravity, making it possible to use some terestrial mining techniques and hardware and has more or less unlimited energy once you have a sel
by m4rtink 8y ago
Still, moon has some gravity, making it possible to use some terestrial mining techniques and hardware and has more or less unlimited energy once you have a self-sustaining solar panel plant going.
The general idea for ONeil cylinders has been to build them in Moon-Earth Lagrange points with lunar material launched by solar powered electromagnetic mass drivers.
So the distance from Moon is not really an issue.
- PaulHoule 8y agoThe L4 and L5 Lagrange points that O'Neill advocated in the 1970s really make no sense. Halo orbits around Moon-Earth and Sun-Earth L1 and L2 make a lot more sense because they are energetically cheap to get to. L4 and L5 are a ghetto. Tech like the mass drivers can move material from the asteroid belts in more cheaply than it can from the lunar surface. You also have to consider what it costs to stop the projectiles when they get where they are going (one reason to use the Earth-Moon L1 because you can hit it with nearly no excess velocity)