The impacts of the Moon's limited gravity on the design of a Moon city's transportation network

In the near future mankind could well permanently settle on the Moon.

Whether for research or mining or just good old fashioned novelty is irrelevant.

The colony includes:

• Large domed structures for farming and recreation. The largest dome on Earth (according to Wikipedia) is the Singapore National Stadium coming in at 310"¯m (1017"¯ft) in diameter. With the reduced gravity and potential advances in material sciences, I am going to place the diameter of the domes at 1000"¯meters (3280"¯ft). There are currently 20 domes, spaced roughly 2 miles apart (each is at least 2"¯miles from any other dome).

• Underground domiciles form the majority of living spaces. Most domicile spaces are 3.65M × 3.65M (12"¯ft × 12"¯ft) and house two people per room. There are 12,000 people on the Moon colony.

• A central command center, which also serves as a hardened evacuation site in the event of some catastrophic event "“ a meteor strike, perhaps. The command center cannot hold more than 2,500 people.

How would you manage the transportation of goods and people with this setup?

I am primarily looking for methods of travel that make use of the reduced gravity to move things differently than on Earth.

A more specific bonus question...could you make the tube system work for humans?

posted almost 8 years ago

James‭

41 reputation 29 1 5 0