this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
24 points (100.0% liked)
Space
7287 readers
1 users here now
News and findings about our cosmos.
Subcommunity of Science
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But why?
I can't really think of any scenario where this would be needed or practical.
Edit: other than for fortifying landing pads as mentioned in the article.
Eh? The whole article refers to lunar dust being the bane of existence there. The slabs would no longer be kicking up dust into sensitive delicate stuff.
What sensitive delicate stuff needs to be lugged around on roads on the moon a lot?
Everything would benefit not being exposed to moon dust, especially humans.
The moon dust is extremely sticky, abrasive, chemically reactive and terrible for the health.
And it's not like we can just hose down the rover or the spacesuit to remove the dust. I think dealing with the moon dust can be one of the major hurdle of setting up a moonbase.
Believe it or not, the answer to your question is also in the article.
Can only guess.
But if colonisation. Or even long term occupation for research. Is to happen. Then there will be need to house and maintain landers and launch veicles of some form.
Such will mean a need to move from launch pad to an enviroment where technician's can repair test and maintain in shelter.
Yes launchpads I can see, and short stretches of fortified paths to and from those, but I find it highly unlikely that there will ever be the need to construct roads for overland travel on the moon.
Agreed. Only time I can see it being needed. Is if we end up with multiple nation colonies. Trade between them may be a reason.
But its far from clear.
But landing pads alone. Seems like a valid reason to consider the tech.
It may also lead to the production of movable regalth sheets. (Assuming structural integrity can be resolved. ) Used to build shelters.
I can see a future possible. Where people lay rebar like grids in the dust. Cover it. Satalite uses sunlight to power lasers to melt the dust. And that generates a sheet of ceramic material used for all lorts of production.
The first paragraph list another motivation: