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Old October 25th 17, 02:13 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
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Default Discovery of 50km cave raises hopes for human colonisation of moon

"William Elliot" wrote in message
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On Tue, 24 Oct 2017, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

It's funny you mention this. The first idea has been looked at
for
cave rescue, but so far hasn't been done, at least routinely.
It
may work better in lava tube because they tend to be straighter
and
less mazy (but that's far from true too). But there's no
guarantee
until we go.

Why not? More expensive than cables? On the other hand, for
twisting, winding, narrow caves, cables would be better, at
least for those portions.


I'm speculating, but I would expect wireless relays to have a lot of
problems with multipath reception ('echoes' from all the rocks and
crap in the cave). Of course, physical wires have the problem that
something actually needs to pay them out and not have problems with
reels and snags.

Yeah, radio's really not my forte, but that's a concern.

But my understanding is with modern signal processing that can be
mitigated somewhat. Whether it's enough, I have no idea.

The more I think about this, the more interesting the problem is.

For example, here on Earth, some folks are starting to use drones in
caves. Lets you explore pits or domes w/o needing to do any rigging or
bolting.

But of course that's not really feasible on the Moon.

And of course any of our techniques for going up and down rope here on
Earth are going to be far more complex on the Moon. On the other hand,
you've got 1/6th the mass to move. Most likely you'd have to rely on
winches, but as a backup, I think you'd still want to do some version
of what's known as single rope (or knowing NASA, twin-rope) technique
hear on Earth.


Sling ropes and Prussic knots?


No, we're far beyond that in terms of equipment. I mean many of us still
know how to use Prussics, but I can't imagine using them with spacesuit
gloves on.

No, we're talking a fully mechanical system, probably a ropewalker because
spacesuits traditionally haven't done well with bending at the waist. (The
A7LB was a bit better in that regards). On the other hand, putting on the
knee cam might be impossible.

A frog or texas may be the way to go, even if far less efficient.

I think some version of what's known as a rope-walker would work
well. Bit more complex than some other systems, but doesn't rely on
bending at the waist as much. But still not sure it would be
possible to get on/off the rope in a full suit.


I'm definitely eager now to try to figure out if this is possible!


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
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