Preparing lunar surface . . .

You propose a very good suggestion and all other factors being
equal, I would favor your proposal.

But how would distance from the base effect your proposal? The road
infrastructure needed to connect the two. The electrical power that
might be required.

The one supposition in my proposal that I didn't clearly state was
that I thought that a kinetic energy projectile would be cheaper
than the engineering needed to optimize tower locations and connect
them to the base with road and utilities. To avoid a lengthy journey
every time you wanted to launch a payload. Such journeys on the moon
wouldn't be as easy as they are on earth.

If the destructive energy of the kinetic energy projectile (or
explosive) that would destroy a mountaintop is not cheaper and more
time-efficient, then of course there's little point in further
investigating that option and better to optimize the site and build
the roads, etc.

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:
> From: "victoriatangoman"
> To:
> Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 6:53 PM
> Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Preparing lunar surface . . .
>
> [snikt]
> > Your suggestion has merit, and I'm not sure which is the best
way to
> > go. What if there is an obstruction on a 2,000 meter mountain
and we
> > need to clear the peak of 100 meters of material? Is it more
> > efficient to blast it away to give an unobstructed path so that
the
> > system can touch down at 10-50 meters elevation at the touchdown
> > points, or is it more efficient to leave the mountain peak intact
> > and build a 2,050 meter tower at each of the touchdown points?
> >
> I don't know (although I feel that tall towers will have very cheap
> structural requirements in the low lunar gravity). But what about
if we take
> an intermediate approach:
>
> - First, you run some optimization/lunaprocessing program in order
to
> maximize the "peakness" of your touch down points. (A "peaky"
touchdown
> point would be one located in a elevation - mountain top, crater
rim - with
> no taller elevations around.)
>
> - Then you build your "spaceport towers". The tallest touchdown
point in
> fact will have no tower, just a spaceport platform. The other
points will
> have a tower going to the altitude of the tallest point. Since all
points
> were optimized to be locally high, I would expect the average
height of the