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A STEP INTO THE FUTURE 4

From the Lunar L1 Station your take an elevator down to the lunar surface. The idea of a bean stalk as a means of getting off a planet's surface is a very old one. There is still no material strong enough to support an Earth bean stalk, but the low gravity and lack of atmosphere make such a device possible on the Moon. A Bean Stalk is a cable from a planet's surface to a mass in synchronus orbit. The material of the cable must be strong enough to support it's own considerable weight plus the weight of the elevator and cargo. (See "The Tethers in Space Handbook", NASA) Since you were launched from Earth, most of your travel has been in passenger modules launched and captured by magnetic linear mass drivers. Because they use readily available electric energy, and they do not require reaction mass, they are the most economical and most common form of transportation in the solar system. (research mass drivers on the web) The Lunar Mag Driver Terminal is located on the equator near the base of the Lunar L1 Station bean stalk and has several catching tubes as well as launching tubes. Shorter tubes are used to reach locations in near earth space, while the longer tubes can push payloads to the inner as well as the outer solar system. The Moon has become the major jumping off point for travel to most of the solar system.

Besides the community at the base of the bean stalk, there are stations located at the poles, on the lunar far side, and at other locations on the lunar surface. Far Side is primarily a scientific community. Major optical and radio astronomy observatories are scattered widely over the area surrounding the station. The polar stations and the other lunar stations are mining colonies. Most of the actual work is done by automated machinery, but a few people still live at the outposts. The Loonies are a small tight knit group dispite being spread over most of the lunar surface. It took years of law suits for the first lunar property claims to be recognized, but that broke the ground for development throughout the solar system. Bulk regolith is not exported from the lunar surface anymore, only refined products. At some point in the future it will be required that mass be returned to the lunar surface in exchange for any mass removed. The reason, to maintain the lunar tides on Earth. Fortunately the Moon is no longer a major supplier of material in the solar system, that job is now Mercury's.

A Lunar surface colony is almost entirely underground. First you dig a hole, about 40 feet deep. On the smooth flat bottom you lay out the subfloor panels, the pressure membrane, and the finished floor panels. The area covered can be square, rectangular or any shape that can be made with the 10x10 foot panels. ( See Modutank Inc. ) The heavy reinforced wall panels are erected on the sides with connecting cables across the roof and floor, and temporary roof support poles every 10 feet over the interior area. Next the flat roof is added, and all the pressure membranes are sealed. Now comes the tricky part, lunar soil is slowly and evenly added to the roof as the pressure is increased inside the structure. What you get is a pressure supported roof structure of very light weight with a heavy 40 foot layer of shielding regolith overhead.

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