When the first Mars colonists hop in their cars and drive around town, they may travel through lava tubes. In a new study from the University of Padova and the University of Bologna, researchers compared lava tubes on Earth, the moon, and Mars, using hi-resolution satellite data, and determined that these openings could provide space for homes, streets, and even communities.
Lava tubes are created in two ways. Over-crusted tubes form when lava flows close to the surface and a crust hardens like a calzone. After the eruption, the lava filling drains out and leaves the crust with a tunnel just a few yards underneath the surface. The other formation, inflated tubes, are created when lava ends up squeezing through cracks and crevasses left over from previous eruptions, which create a web of tunnels leading up to the surface.
On Earth, some of these networks can extend up to forty miles. On the moon and Mars, scientists have noticed what looks like lava tubes that have had their roofs cave in. Gravity data collected by NASA suggests subsurface caverns that are likely the result of volcanoes.
“The comparison of terrestrial, lunar and Martian examples shows that, as you might expect, gravity has a big effect on the size of lava tubes, “Riccardo Pozzobon, one of the researchers who spearheaded the study, said in a statement. “On Earth, they can be up to thirty meters (98.5 feet) across. In the lower gravity environment of Mars, we see evidence for lava tubes that are 250 meters (820 feet) in width. On the moon, these tunnels could be a kilometer (0.62 miles) or more across and many hundreds of kilometers in length.”
In a related study, researchers have suggested how future spacecraft can use radar to scan the moon’s surface and detect networks of tunnels underneath. Today’s remote sensing systems don’t have the capacity to detect features of lava tubes through the surface.
“These results have important implications for habitability and human exploration of the Moon but also for the search of extraterrestrial life on Mars,” Pozzobon said. “Lava tubes are environments shielded from cosmic radiation and protected from micrometeorites flux, potentially providing safe habitats for future human missions. They are also, potentially, large enough for quite significant human settlements – you could fit most of the historic city center of Riga into a lunar lava tube.”
The European Space Agency has begun training astronauts using data collected by Pozzobon and her team. The research was presented last weekend at this year’s European Planetary Science Congress in Riga, Latvia.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.