Cheap Astronomy - Dear CA #108: Infrastructure

Building the future! Dear Cheap Astronomy – How will we build a lunar base? The main issue with building on Earth is gravity – that is, if you’d don’t build them properly they will fall over. With the Moon having one sixth of earth’s gravity, stopping things from falling over is still important but it’s a much easier thing to accomplish. The main challenge for building structures for people to live in on the Moon is that those structures will need to retain internal pressure against a vacuum.   Dear Cheap Astronomy – Will travel to Mars ever become routine? There is a view that whenever we do send astronauts to Mars, they won’t fly there in one spacecraft. Their launch vehicle from Earth might dock with an orbiting deep space vehicle, which is built for deep space travel in a vacuum and would never have survived a launch through Earth’s atmosphere.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].