Tunneling Experts Excited At Prospect Or Boring Tunnels On Lunar Surface

[Judi Lynn]

11 May 2019, 7:21 am EDT By Diane Samson Tech Times

At the annual World Tunnel Congress in Naples, experts from around the world discuss digging tunnels for future human colonizers of the Moon.

Digging Tunnels On The Moon
Experts at the event held from May 3 to May 9 offer solutions to the challenges that NASA and other space agencies from around the world might face upon arrival to the lunar surface.

"Imagine something the size of my fist as a piece of rock coming at 10-12 kilometres per second, it can hit anything and would immediately destroy it," said Jamal Rostami, director of the Earth Mechanics Institute at the U.S. Colorado School of Mine, to AFP. "So every plan for having a habitat on the moon involves making a trench, creating a structure and covering it with some sort of regolith, which is the soil on the moon."

The lunar surface is not an ideal place for humans to live in. Aside from the threat of meteorite strikes, astronauts who will stay there will be constantly bombarded with radiation.

More:
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/243165/20190511/tunneling-experts-excited-at-prospect-or-boring-tunnels-on-lunar-surface.htm

[csziggy]

1. Robert Heinlein predicted lunar tunnels for colonization

In "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" in 1966! But if my memory is correct, his future had bored tunnels rather than digging trenches and covering them.

[Staph]

2. Your memory is correct!

I reread that book every five years or so. Heinlein's libertarianism becomes more obvious to me as I get older, but I still love the characters and the loonies' sense of patriotism.

And I want a friend like Mike!