FYI

"
* The Moon's Malapert Mountain Seen As Ideal Site for Lunar Lab
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_mountain_020326.html

Two sharp-eyed investigators using radar astronomy imagery and photos of
the Moon snapped by the U.S. Defense Department's Clementine orbiter have
pinpointed the best place to help kick-start a 21st century program of
lunar exploration and utilization.
"

>
> * The Moon's Malapert Mountain Seen As Ideal Site for Lunar Lab
>
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/moon_mountain_020326.html
>
> Two sharp-eyed investigators using radar astronomy imagery
> and photos of
> the Moon snapped by the U.S. Defense Department's Clementine
> orbiter have
> pinpointed the best place to help kick-start a 21st century
> program of
> lunar exploration and utilization.
> "

This is fairly old news even by space.com standards: as the articles notes,
the Mountain of Eternal Light (as it was originally dubbed) was targetted as
part of the Euromoon 2000 plan as early as 1996; & because of its solar
power potential & proximity to the H ion-bearing crater now called
Shackleton, it had been identified as the best piece of real estate in the
solar system for a sustainable space base by European (hence: Euromoon),
USAmerican & Japanese researchers a couple of years before that. So what
exactly was the news here? That someone at space.com stumbled on all this
research?

Mind you: the average Zubrinite seems to want to remain gloriously
illinformed about the potential of the Lunar South Pole; so maybe that's why
it was thought that this piece of puff history could be played as news....

Live in peace
Robert.Clements@...
endeavour2 project http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>

> oxygen combinations, the last few Apollo missions
> started to discover high concentrations of Si and
> other minerals. That is old news too, but well

Si ?

Silicon ?

Why is that important ?

Did you mean something else ?

Si is abundant on the Moon, I forget the precise
percentage but something like 30% of the Moon by
weight is Silicon. It is bound up as SiO2, pure
silicon does not occur naturally on the Moon or
anywhere else that I know of.

Si is not particularly important that I can think of
unless you want to try to make semiconductors on the
Moon, but that would be very difficult and require a
phenomenal investment.

Charles

I was using Si in a general term, the entire subject can become very involved, thus I will try to be short.

Additionally, if someone like Bill Gates can create chips that are 100% better than what we can do now, well, they have money to burn. The following is data from the Apollo missions and a cut and past from a 1985 report I did(In 1985 the 30 page report was up to date, new revisions and updates is in progress.):

MARE SOIL HIGHLAND BASALT ANORTHOSITE GLASS
(10002) SOIL ROCK (60015) (60095)
(67700)

Sio 42.16 44.77 46.00 44.00 44.87
Al 0 13.60 28.46 24.90 36.00 25.48
CaO 11.94 16.87 14.30 19.00 14.52
FeO 15.34 4.17 4.70 0.35 5.75
mgO 7.76 4.92 8.10 0.30 5.75
TiO 7.75 0.44 0.61 0.02 0.51
Cr 0 0.30 0.00 0.13 0.01 0.14
MnO 0.20 0.06 0.07 0.01 0.07
Na 0 0.47 0.52 0.57 0.04 0.28

TABLE 1 - CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS OF SELECTED LUNAR SAMPLES

Source: T. D. Lin, Concrete for Lunar Base Construction, Construction Technology Laboratories

MISSION

APOLLO 11 .. 6.6%

APOLLO 12 .. 18%

APOLLO 14 .. 12.2%

APOLLO 15 ..29.4%

APOLLO 16 ..10.6%

APOLLO 17 ..31.1%

AVERAGE GLASS CONTENT OF LUNAR SAMPLES PERCENT

TABLE 2 - GLASS CONTENT OF SAMPLES

Source: T. D. Lin, Concrete for Lunar Base Construction, Construction Technology Laboratories

"...Table two on page 12 shows the glass content of Lunar samples. This glass content is important in the production of other materials. The richness in the calcium oxide makes the rock valuable in the production of glasses. As can be seen in table two, the Lunar surface is rich in glass content. Some samples taken from short crater rims have glass content as high as 92.3 percent(3:383). The Space Studies Institute(SSI) has been performing extensive research on this finding. They claim that if a quartz (rock of chemical composition Si 0 ) veins are found in the Lunar highland rocks, a superior glass fiber can be made(11). They have developed a process that mixes this rock with feldspar to make a super strong material that will meat the requirements of a Lunar material. Also, they found that if the feldspar is enriched by an additional 36 percent of SiO to that of table two, it would be possible to make the highest performance commercial glass fiber that are now known of on Earth..."

Joe Russo