Marvin the Martian wrote:

:On Fri, 22 May 2009 05:20:40 +0000, Derek Lyons wrote:
:
: Fred J. McCall wrote:
:
(Derek Lyons) wrote:
:
::Fred J. McCall wrote: :
::Brian Thorn wrote: :
:::On Thu, 21 May 2009 03:42:56 GMT, "Alan Erskine"
wrote:
:::
::: What you really want to do is... (wait for it) ... build a
:manufacturing :: plant on Mars. Once on Mars, you can use Martian
:materials, so you don't :: have to bring as much mass up.
:::
:::Or the Moon - nearer to Earth; no atmosphere at all (compared to
:Mars) and ::half the gravity of Mars. Also the Moon's closer to the
:Sun, so solar ::energy can be used for smelting materials and
:industrial processes. ::
:::The two-week nights are the killer. ::
::
::Start at the poles.
::
::Where 13 day nights are the killer.
::
:
:I shouldn't have to explain this, Derek, but...
:
:Get an orange. Shine a light on one side. Go to one of the 'poles'.
:Draw a line on the orange perpendicular to the 'terminator' passing
:through the 'pole'. Stick in a pin just a bit into the light along that
:line. Stick another pin on the same line, just into the dark. Spin the
:orange along its 'axis'. Observe just how much time all of BOTH pins
:are in the dark.
:
:If you did it right, that time is zero...
:
: I shouldn't have to explain this to you Fred - but the moon isn't a
: perfectly aligned orange. Nor are we building bases on pins hundreds of
: kilometers above the orange's surface.
:
: D.
:
:Moon has a 1.5 degree tilt to the ecliptic.
:
:The area that can be planted is very small; a thin line, because the moon
:rotates, and the light is coming in horizontal, not vertically. So the
:first row of plants is going to put the second row of plants in partial
:shadow, and the third row in more shadow, and so on. No atmosphere to
:create "diffuse" light and all that.
:
:You can plant them on a hill, but the hill will not always be on the
:sunny side of the moon, due to the rotation.
:
:Nope. You're going to have to use artificial lighting and lots of man
:made energy.

Uh, who's talking about growing plants?

Do you read?

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
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