LHC@home

Does anyone know:

What is the strength of glass on the moon?
How would Aerogel conpare to glass on the moon?

How can the two(Glass and Aerogel) strengthen a space station and where on the station can they be applied?

What in your opinions is the best material for
space station construction?

Simple minds want to know
Ernie S
Team Art Bell
God Bless

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Ernesto

I think you have muddled the concepts here.

The strength of materials is not generally affected by a lunar (or any other) environment, so the strenght of glass is the same on the Moon as it is here. There may be long term effects associated with degradation in a space environment caused by radiation, micro-meteorites, etc. The main strength of glass is in tension, so glass fibres could perhaps be used where a tensile load is to be carried. Kevlar probably provides a better strength to weight ratio, and since weight is the key determinant in launch costs, glass wouldn't be used. So, beyond it's obvious use as a component in windows I don't see that there be much use for it.

Aerogel is a silicon based substance, and there the similarity to glass largely stops. Although it has a density approaching that of air, it is extremely porous. You wouldn't use it for windows unless you wanted all your air to leak through it.
You can get more details about Aerogel on the NASA web site.

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Gaspode the UnDressed
http://www.littlevale.co.uk

Aerogel is a silicon based substance, and there the similarity to glass largely stops. Although it has a density approaching that of air, it is extremely porous. You wouldn't use it for windows unless you wanted all your air to leak through it.
You can get more details about Aerogel on the NASA web site.

Well, actually you would if heat dispersion though fluid convection is an issue, as it is, for example, for household windows
It would anyway be necessary to seal it between two layers of some kind of glass, to avoid air leakage thorugh the aerogle layer and, possibly, its damaging though environmental agents (dust, wind) but the heat conduction though this aerogel layer would be almost none. Put an aerogel layer on your roof as well and you'll get an almost adiabatic house, needing much less energy both for heating and for air conditioning. This, in turn, would also make much more feasible to heat or refrigerate a house though geothermal gauges possibly driven by solar energy, hence with no fossile fuel consumption for heating and air conditioning (and a fair long term saving on energy bills!)

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Well, actually you would if heat dispersion though fluid convection is an issue, as it is, for example, for household windows

Good point, but I bet it's not cost effective for domestic insulation.

How many domestic windows are there on the moon?

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Gaspode the UnDressed
http://www.littlevale.co.uk

Well, actually you would if heat dispersion though fluid convection is an issue, as it is, for example, for household windows

Good point, but I bet it's not cost effective for domestic insulation.

How many domestic windows are there on the moon?

There will be many someday!

Thanks for your imput guys
Ernie

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Well, actually you would if heat dispersion though fluid convection is an issue, as it is, for example, for household windows

Good point, but I bet it's not cost effective for domestic insulation.

One of TEFLON's first applications was Apollo spaceship thermal shield, and it was not cost effective either, now there's a TEFLON layer on every non-sticking pan...

How many domestic windows are there on the moon?

Not many, indeed, and even if they were, there's almost no atmosphere on the moon, hence heat dispersion through a convection/conduction scheme is not at all an issue....

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there's almost no atmosphere on the moon

I see a business opportunity. Let's go found a discotheque up there!



Ah, is that my coat?

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sQuonk
Plague of Mice
Intel Core i3-9100 CPU@3.60 GHz, but it's doing its bit just the same.

Anyway, what you want to do Ernie is not take glass to the moon, but make it there! I'm not sure what firing a few megajoules ( that you got from solar power ) through lunar dust does, but maybe it'll vitrify ( become glass-like ). :-)

Spot on! NASA's having a contest (MoonROx, the Moon Regolith Oxygen competition) to see who can build a device to extract 5 Kg of breathable oxygen from lunar simulant in only 8 hours. One technique (pyrolysis) utilizes concentrated solar energy (sunlight focused with a lens) to heat the lunar simulant, and what's leftover is '"slag", a low-oxygen, highly metallic, often glassy material', and it would make a good raw material for 'bricks, pavement, or radiation shielding'

from friends at Einstein@home(Chipper & Mike)
Just sharing info guys,
thanks
Ernie S

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