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I'm thinking that Elon Musk could build a smallish nuclear powered boring machine he could load onto his biggest rocket and land it on the moon or Mars and just start drilling into a hillside to provide instant shelter for expected guests.
Thoughts?

Anonbene 8 July 17
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Would the hill have cracks or fissures? LIkely it wouldn't be air tight.

HopDavid Level 4 July 18, 2018

No I don't think it would be but I think a liner of expandable rubber on a Slinky type of spring could be used to form air tight space to live in comfortably.
I think a few domes would get claustrophobic pretty quick but a boring machine could keep expanding living space as more people and equipment arrived.

@Anonbene Would be colonizers imagine making pressurized, self sufficient communities. Places that not only grow their own food, mine their own metal, do their own manufacturing but even extract the air they breathe. A Walden Pond on steroids.

If we could establish such a settlement from landing a few hundred tonnes on another planet, we could do the same on earth. Drop these colony seeds on barren wastelands and -- ¡Voila! -- worthless real estate is transformed into another Beverly Hills.

I'm serious -- such colony seeds could be a source of revenue for people like Musk, Bezos and others who hope to open a new frontier.

A great place to do this would be at the highest city on Earth - El Rinconada. This city is so high people can barely breathe. Electricity, plumbing and sewer infrastructure is just about nonexistent. But lots of people choose to live in this hell hole because of the gold.

A pressurized hab with solar power, recycling to give fresh water and air, fresh vegetables -- this would be a Godsend to the people of El Rinconada. And given the abundance of gold, this might even make money.

Right now Musk and Bezos are working hard to make better rockets. They also need to work hard on the payloads they're sending with these rockets.

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Small problem of the lack of nuclear material to power the reactor..rtgs generally are powered wih Pu238 which is not being made anymore. the process requires Np237 that is irradiated by neutrons. currently Nasa has about 35kg and it requires about 5kg for a typical mission. A nuclear powered boring machine would require more Pu238 than exists on the planet. Production is scheduled to restart next year.. but only about 3kg per year.

JohnBeret Level 5 July 17, 2018

Solar panels to generate electricity to run the borer and provide heat and lights air recycler?

@Anonbene not practical... a typical 4m tbm requires about 1.5Mw of power. a rough estimate of solar cell electricity production would be about 2kw /m^2 of panels.. so a field of 750 or so panels would need to be installed. (solar cells are expected to decline 2 to 3% per year due to proton radiation in the solar wind). A more effective solutoon is to land a 3d printer dwsigned to build autonomous excavators. they would scoop up the regolith and haul it back to the printer, initially to build and assemble additional printers and excavators. a later mission would land what are essentially large inflatable structures the would be placed in trenches dug by the excavators, which would then bury the structure in regolith. there would also need to be explorers to find raw materials required for base operations.. mostly water ice... later silicon to build additional solar panels.

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Very creative idea. I like it.

Thank You Betty. I think we already have all the technology needed to do this now. Colonies in the moon or Mars? No problem.

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Even if this is feasible, then what? A hole in a hill on the moon or on Mars would still be uninhabitable.

Heraclitus Level 8 July 17, 2018

I imagine it would protect from the sun's radiation for one. But also I think it would be easier to line it and divide it with walls and make it easier to condition the air to breathable and temperature balancing.

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