3 ms·

Parent was concerned about spoiling pristine regolith by footprints and tracks. Anyway, multiply the mine areas several times, it's unlikely the raw regolith w

• fnordpiglet 4y ago
  You could conduct the heat via heat pipes into the crust. The lunar basalt has decent thermal conductivity. Using something like mercury or alcohols (which have a low freezing point, and have ok phase change temperatures), or something more exotic you should be pretty ok. Radiators are mostly useful off a surface that can act like a heat sink, especially one as cold as the moon.
  • fnordpiglet 4y ago
    Oh I’d say you wouldn’t process regolith for export at all, but for use on the moon. I think you wouldn’t process and export raw materials on the moon I think you would do heavy industry you wouldn’t do on earth in the cave systems of the moon and export manufacture goods. I don’t think you would even export them to the earth but into orbit or interplanetary. Exported materials from the moon to mars would be a lot more economical than the earth.
  • rini17 4y ago
    If you were to just heat sink underground all the time, it will be a non renewable resource. That already happened in London underground that the ground heated to uncomfortable temperatures over time. But coupled with bidirectional heat pumps and surface radiators, there's heat storage potential.