"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

The winds will help to some extent.

Yeah, but think about putting an electric fan into a bell jar and pumping
out 99% of the air. It wouldn't surprise me if the fan didn't seriously
overheat, even with the added air movement.

You can drill down into the surface, and used a closed-loop system to
cycle something through a heat exchanger that dumps internal eat into the
bedrock where it migrates away via conduction.

Eh, maybe. I'm still concerned that that bedrock is covered by regolith, so
I'm thinking you'd quickly get into diminishing returns. It's not like the
bedrock is like a big slab of iron or aluminum.

On the other hand, radiators might not be that big a problem in orbit. One
thing you could do in weightless which you could never do under gravity is
have a heat radiator 3 inches thick but 3 square miles in area which
moreover can radiate heat away from both sides.

You are probably going to want the base primarily underground, or at least
have soil covering it for radiation protection, and that will be easier to
do with some gravity on your side to keep it in place.

The old space colony studies recommended fusing the slag left over from the
ore refinement process into 6-foot thick slabs which would then be assembled
into a radiation shield surrounding the habitat. I don't see much of a
problem with that approach. Molds could be heated at the focus of a big
solar mirror. That strikes me as uncomplicated and inexpensive.

Transparent inflatable domes might be tough though; there's unfiltered
high-UV sunlight to deal with, as well as radiation degrading of the
dome's material.

I'd agree. I'm more optimistic about glass windows set in steel or aluminum
frames than transparent, inflatable material.

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Regards,
Mike Combs
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By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn