[ExI] The Moon's Cold Embrace

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 1:57 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Farming is a particularly difficult problem on the moon.  It takes
> around 25 kW of light on a farming area to support a person.  Where
> does it come from?  You also have to get rid of 25 kW per person.  How
> is that done?
>
> Free space O"Neill type colonies are a lot less difficult with respect
> to energy (light) for plants and heat sinks.
>
> But if you have suggestions for how to do this on the moon, i would be
> most interested to see your analysis.
>

To me, this is a secondary reason to plant a colony near the north or south
pole, after the availability of water ice surviving in permanently shadowed
craters: you can build a ring of solar panels, such that some of them will
always be in sunlight.

As to getting rid of heat, could you dig heat sinks into the Moon and
radiate heat into the rock?  Not as efficiently as into open air on Earth,
but could it work?
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