Noah's Ark on the Moon

concept,,,how???

Gary 7

> Summary (Feb 27, 2006): In the second in our series
> of 'Gedanken,' or
> thought experiments, Bernard Foing suggests that the
> moon could act as a
> lifeboat in case Earth is ever struck down by a
> major catastrophe.
>
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid80&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 I was tempted to say that if their goal was to provide environments in which to preserve life (and not all of it just in gene banks) they would be far better off in HEO than on the lunar surface, due to the 2-week long lunar night. But I would have to admit that the goal of preserving gene lines is a much more modest goal than that of raising enough crops to support a population of 10,000 or more. I'd have toconcede that at the more modest scale one would need for this particularapplication, plants might be successfully grown under artificial illumination. I get into arguments over and over again with people who think the wholeconcept of habitats with windows through which natural sunlight comes in to shine on crops is a bad idea. They go on and on about how vulnerable the windows would be (based on a basic misconception, in my opinion), and about how much heat would need to be rejected if using the full spectrum of sunlight. They tell me how much more efficient things will be if using red LEDs, or some other form of artificial illumination,to raise our crops. I can see that working at a small scale. But when we get up to the scale of needing toraise crops to feed 10,000 or more, we're talking crops by the square mile. And between square miles of glass and Mylar mirrors, and square miles of any kind of artificial light sources, I know which is going to be cheaper.

Regards,
Mike Combs