Lunar stone cutting

Forum: SSI-List
Thread: Lunar stone cutting

# 14809 byhollroa@... on May 18, 2001, 8:09 a.m.
Member since 2022-08-22

Does anyone know where I can find information on the hardness of various lunar
rock types?

Stone cutting disks can be made from aluminium oxide, which is abundant in
lunar highland material. Given that lunar stone is literally everywhere on the
surface of the moon, it would stand to reason that it would make an ideal
building material. All that we would really need in order to fashion stone
blocks, is a stone cutting machine and a sintering machine capable of producing
Al2O3 cutting disks. Lunar habitats could be fashioned almost entirely from
lunar stone. Pressurised structures would need to keep under a great deal of
compression. I suppose that the ideal approach would be to build a stone
structure at the bottom of a rille or deep crater and then cover it with a deep
layer of compacted lunar soil from above. Stone structures are excellent
candidates for telerobotic construction, because they are so simple in design.