Re: Terraforming the Moon

From: The Ghost In The Machine (ewill_at_sirius.athghost7038suus.net)
Date: 03/06/05 

Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 01:00:05 GMT

In sci.physics, habshi
<habshi@anony.com>
 wrote
on Sat, 05 Mar 2005 22:38:23 GMT
<422a3440.12705199@news.clara.net>:
> we need millions of tiny robots to terraform the moon.

[rest snipped]

[1] $20,000/kg or $20M/metric tonne -- and that's just to
    low earth orbit.
[2] Moon surface area 3.7959 * 10^9 hectare or 3.7959 * 10^13 m^2.
    If one assumes a depth of 5 meters of oxygen (and we would
    probably need a lot more than that!) at partial pressure
    .20 * 101350 Pascal = 20270 Pascal and temperature
    293 K, one gets

    n = PV/(RT) = 20270 Pa * (1.8979*10^14 m^3) / (8.314472 (J/(mol K)*293 K)
      = 1.579 * 10^15 moles or 5.0533 * 10^10 metric tonnes.
[3] Total cost: $1.1066 * 10^18. Compare this to the total
    yearly US GDP of about $1.1 * 10^13. It'll only take 110,000
    years of total dedication, though if we can get a space elevator
    working for a cost of $2000/kg we might reduce it to 11,000 years.
[4] I'll admit I wish I knew how fast that atmosphere will boil away.
    But there's a reason the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere now.
    I'll give you one guess. 

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.

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