High Frontier can help Mars Direct

>>>Another point ignored
is that plant roots need oxygen. We can ignore that but the plants won't.
They'll die. And the oxygen partial pressure needed to make soy beans do
well is about 5 times the Martian atmospheric pressure. This means there
will have to be a gas tight floor below the soil, the soil will have to be
treated to either take out the iron and other materials which will combine
with oxygen, or substantial oxygen will be lost to these reactions, and the
"plastic wrap" greenhouses will have to be under significant pressure,
oxygen, water vapor plus carbon dioxide.>>>

In that case, it seems likely that we will have to manufacture the soil that
we need.
Does any one have any figures for the intensity and frequency of solar flares?
Solar flares will probably kill crops that are grown within thin walled
greenhouses. As long as we have the ability to store large quantities of food,
and our crops are fast growing under continuous sunlight, we could probably
afford to lose a few harvests. If this were acceptable, then the same plastic or
glass composite domes that are used to grow crops on Mars, could be used to grow
crops on the moon, or free space. A glass composite structure, could be
manufactured from lunar soils. Alternatively, a vaulted chamber could be
produced using sintered regolith blocks or lunar stone. Compacted lunar soil may
make a good mortar. Small Alumino-silicate glass slabs, would function as
skylights within the roof of the chamber. Sun tracking concentrators would focus
light through the skylights, into the chamber.

Tony