"Ian Stirling" wrote in message ...
Ool wrote:

I've read a few chapters from the Lunar Base Handbook, and one project
estimate is that the solar panels needed for supplying an initial base
would weigh only a ridiculous 1t while the equipment needed to *store*
enough power for surviving the Lunar night would weigh about 45t.

Solar panels are running at approaching 200W/Kg for the cutting-edge
designs (zero G)

100Kw (average) isn't a very huge amount of power.
For example, if you were wanting to run a greenhouse on it, it's enough
to light a room 10 meters square or so at a bit less than sunlight.

The concept of a *first* base would include bringing one's own junk
food.

Heating and air conditioning can easily use this sort of power, not

The idea is to live in an inflatable habitat buried under an insulat-
ing layer of regolith. (Which is very insulating. Only about half a
meter down in the ground there's a stable -20°C, as opposed to -140°C
or +100°C on the surface.)

to mention energy intensive stuff like trying to process crust.

That would be done during the day, using solar electric and solar
thermal energy.

The night is about a megasecond, so you'd need 100GJ of storage.
This is some 130t using lithium-ion cells. (good for over a decade)

If there is a simple way of fusing regolith into highly thermally con-
ductive slabs of black glass it could possibly be used for a heat
source (or, alternatively, a heat sink) that would stay warm (or cold)
all during the night (or day) by exposing it during the day (or night)
while covering it up the rest of the time with insulating metal foil
and/or regolith.

Such a solution would have the advantage of being rather low-tech and
of not requiring much mass from Earth by making use of Lunar material
for energy storage in the form of temperature difference...



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