I. LCROSS has reported: “There is water in Cabeus.” This is a long way from reading these word on a statue of Anthony Colaprete on the campus of Cabeus High School on the Moon but it is important. The picture below is of me on one of my family’s farms when I was a child but modified to seem the interior of one of my imagined lunar or Martian crater colonies. The wetlands, ponds and gardens at the bottom of the crater are analagous to the Pacific Ocean on Earth it is to be remembered. They are the great concentrations of the water.
The way this environment could be effected is diagrammed below. However, since wet craters exist on the Moon’ polar regions the plans would need to be modified in the first colony. Thus the major solar arrays would either be orbital or (preferably) miles away and connected to the colony by buried cables. Later colonies in the regions of more light would use a design closer to this one.
- How a crater on the Moon or Mars might be developed.
Here is a crude and brief key to the diagram.
1. The ring at the top is a cap which covers the crater rim.
2.The yellowish gold lines running out from it are rail lines joining the colony to spaceports, colonies and other assets — no spacecraft are allowed near the colony.
3. The red straight lines are the rails on top of the cap built of very strong and light materials.
4.The blue disks are solar array which in the case of a polar colony would have to be remote.
5.The orange-gold disks on the land near bu or observational astronomy, science and communications assets.
6.The green square with the x in the middle is a green pyramidal building housing the only airlock connecting the colony to the surface.
7.The heavy dark green line and the heavy dark red line are buildings which as columns support the cap from the middle and have elevators connecting the floor to the cap and in the case of the green building to th rest of the universe.
8. The irregular green and blue areas at the bottom are the farming, fishing, park and hydrology features.
9.The series of lines in grays and blues and tube-like shapes fanning out near the bottom are the mines which would be the economic base of the colonies in most cases.
10. In a mature colony many homes would be in the mines and the better ones would carefully built into the rims of the craters. The floor space of the crater would only be for viewing, agriculture, recreation and truly urgent assignment for other uses. The mental health and prosperity of these colonies would depend upon such a rule.
II. Having seen what could be does not mean that it will be. We will probably never do these things — but our only hope for a good future involves doing these things.
III. I hope ye few, ye brave, ye readers will consider getting involved in this process.
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