Surviving the Night: the 354-Hour Problem
Why is the lunar night the defining engineering and cost constraint for a base, and what does it cost to get through it?
Chapter summary
A day-night cycle on the Moon lasts about 29.5 Earth days, so most places face about 354 hours of darkness at a stretch, with surface temperatures falling below −170 °C.
Key takeaways
- 1
A small base needing 5 kW through that night must store about 1,770 kWh; with good space batteries that is about 15 tonnes of batteries alone, which at today's delivery prices is too heavy to ship.
- 2
A 5 kW share of a fission reactor weighs about 0.75 tonnes.
- 3
Near the south pole, some ridges are lit 80–90% of the time and the longest darkness falls to about 100 hours, which cuts the battery mass by two-thirds.
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Communications and Navigation: LunaNet, Moonlight and Queqiao
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