How would we live on the Moon?

I spent the day cleaning out my garage. That is attempting to clean it out.

Found myself going through old papers and reading some lunar-update posts as well as questions answered for Michelle Mock back in 2001. She has a web site and provides a service for kids to ask questions.
http://www.imagiverse.org/team/
http://www.imagiverse.org/questions/index.htm
http://www.imagiverse.org/whats_new.htm

I copied below an answer I wrote back in 2001 with some updated URLs.
Maybe you have answers to some of the questions I posed but didn't answer.

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsltr.: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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QUESTION:
How would we live on the Moon?

ANSWER: From Larry Kellogg on March 30, 2001

Since we have only been to the Moon with the Apollo missions we have not really lived on the Moon, more like a visit far away with no McDonalds's or gas stations. We didn't even stay a lunar day but got there usually in the morning light to beat the heat of the Sun. (Maybe three of our days. But you had to sleep with the lights on)

When moving to any new location you would have to bring most everything with you to start. Sort of like loading up a wagon train and heading out west in the early gold rush days. Bring your own pans, food and provisions. Bring your own transportation. Bring everything you might need, including your own water and air to start with and at a very expensive price.

It is hard to get up off of Earth and you would probably start out near a full moon if you were going to use solar panels for electricity. The ride to grandmother's house is about 105 hours but varies depending on how far away the moon will be from Earth as its orbit is elliptical, so some months are better than others.

You probably don't want to dive straight into the Moon, but would go into orbit around the Moon and then maybe drop off in a Lander like they did during the Apollo missions. The Apollo Lander only had room for two people. Larger vehicles would be even harder to shoot to the moon, so how many would you need in the first landing party to set up shop. Could you do it with five? Do you bring a doctor along or make one of your astronauts be qualified in more than one job?

Where is your house? Did you bring one or send one ahead on a different spaceship? Did it assemble itself or was it just the rocket turned around and landed like in the movies? Did you bring along a bathroom or a port-a-potty? Did you bring along Sun Block 15 or higher? What are you going to wear outside in a vacuum? What do you do when the sky falls in (meteors)?

What do you want to do when you get there? Did you bring a book, a set of gulf clubs? (Were you going to work seven days a week?) Who did you pick to come with you? Can you get along well in a sardine can or do you punch someone out if they get on your nerves?

There is no air or liquid water for protection from radiation from the sky. You will have to figure out how to get the things you need or bring them all with you. If we really have ice in a dark crater at one of the poles, how will you get it out when down in the bottom of the crater it is very, very, very cold? If you came for iron and it is near the equator, how will you get that water to where you are going to work (and you thought an hour commute was bad)?

The lunar day is two of our weeks long and the night is two weeks long too. About a 300 degree C swing in temperature. (That is really hot to really cold.) You thought waking up on a cold morning took some warming up, how about your car out that has been cold soaked for two weeks and now is going to fry eggs by lunar noon? (the Moon's near side always faces Earth but as the Moon goes around the Earth the Sun line or terminator goes around the Moon too - the far side is lit when we look up at the dark of the new moon)

You probably want your air tight shelter to be buried part way into the Moon's regolith and covered by more cinders and rocks to protect you from those Solar flares and from high energy galactic radiation. Did you bring a John Deer tractor or were you thinking of using a bull dozer? Did you bring your crane to move things around?

Your solar panels could make electricity for a lunar day (our two weeks) but what do you use to read by for a two week night? Maybe a little nuclear reactor stuffed into a small meteor crater would make you some electricity and provide some heat. (Did you have any trouble getting a permit on Earth to launch it into space and did the protestors block your path to the launch
site?)

If we want to process the lunar regolith for building materials or distil water and hydrogen out of it, did we bring along a solar reflector or were we going to use the heat from that nuclear reactor? What were you going to use to sweep up tons of dust to get some Helium 3 to sell to Earth for that new fusion reactor that just came on line? Did you drive that street sweeper or did you use a robot? Did you remember to ship the robot up or were you going to build one on the Moon?

Are you ready to phone home yet? Who is going to put up your TV dish and who was going to listen to you? The Earth is turning on its axis and makes one revolution in 24 hours. You are on the Moon looking down at the blue marble and it takes you one month to go around so where is your dish pointed? Were folks listening in at the Deep Space Network in California, or in Australia or Spain? (Maybe they were listening to someone going to Mars and forgot to point their dish at the Moon.) Who is paying for this? Who insured it and at what premium? (Did you leave any loved ones on Earth?)

This story goes on and on and as you have seen, there are more questions than answers. You can get a lot of information about these things by taking a look at some courses taught at the University of Wisconsin by Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt. Jack was on the last mission to the Moon, Apollo 17 and is a geologist.

Here are some URLs.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/LEC1/trip.html
A Field Trip To The Moon
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo-17/apollo-17.html
Apollo 17
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/apollo.htm
The Apollo Program
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo.html
Project Apollo

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/lecture22.html
NEEP602 Course Notes (Fall 1996)
Resources from Space
Lecture #22: Been there! Done that! Bought the T-shirt!
Title: Lunar Base Activation

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep533/SPRING2004/neep533.html
NEEP533 Course Notes (Spring 2004)
Resources from Space
Course Notes - Spring 2004

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/fti?rm=courses
Course Notes

Snip
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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