| CASTING CHAMBERS |
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| We need some pressure to keep castings from volatilizing as they would in the vacuum. And some shelter for human workers. Metals vapors might fill the air so air scrubbers would be needed and we'd only have a 3psi nitrogen atmosphere so nothing can burn since magnesium is combustible and so is aluminum to some extent. Workers will wear spacesuits inside. Automation will also be used. Temperature control will be necessary. Perhaps the nitrogen pressure in the chamber can be kept cool with a system that uses Sun shielded space radiators to get rid of excess heat. Molds for simple casting and pressure casting will be made of plaster, alumina, silica, alumina-silica from H2SO4 leaching of anorthositic regolith and cast basalt molds might also be used for Mg. |
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| What do we cast in the 10x10x100 ft. iron chamber or "mobile home?" Perhaps big steel and iron stators and rotors for generators and big electric motors? Rollers and frames for rolling mills? Metal ingots will be brought into chamber, melted in electric induction furnace and poured into wetted and sized sand molds for many different parts. Evaporation will be slight. AC units keep the "mobile home" from getting too hot to work in. |
| David A. Dietzler, 2007 |
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| Iron plate rectangular habitats,"mobile homes" can be connected end to end and an opening cut thru for a conveyor belt and assembly line. More than two could be lined up if necessary. Inflateable modules would have parts making machinery on the bottom floor filled in with concrete in case molten metal or glass spills on the floor. Upper levels of the inflateable "moonbagels" would have mess halls, meeting and planning rooms, offices, some storage rooms and even quarters for workers. The "mobile homes" won't be to mobile in reality, will they?? The inflateable habitat and the "mobile homes" would be surrouded by sintered basalt bricks and regolith for micrometeoroid, thermal and radiation protection. See: Modular Iron Habitat and Lunar Model T |
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| A wider taller "mobile home" is what we really need for a lunar factory. The 10x10x100 will be too narrow for a conveyor belt and overhead crane unless the belt is only two feet wide and the line workers are just taking food stuffs cooked in the lower levels of the inflateables and putting them in canning jars with some pressure cookers down the line for a lunar food processsing factory or cannery!!!! See: Canning For vehicle assembly we will need at least a 20 ft. wide "mobile home." All this will have to be covered with about three feet of regolith and sintered or cast basalt retaining walls. A better artist than me might draw that someday. I am just a 2D draftsman. The factory will need lots of electrical power for machines and tools and lots of cooling so AC units will be connected to large shielded space radiators out-vac. The atmosphere will be 3 psi oxygen. High capacity air filtration units will scrub dust from the air of the mobile home and inflateable "Moon bagel" inflateables. Heat build up will be a problem in inflateable casting chambers where molten aluminum and magnesium are poured into plaster molds and steel is sand cast in green sand. Human workers will need NOMEX coveralls. see. NOMEX The Kevlar walls of the habitat would also be insulated with NOMEX. On the bottom levels of the inflateables a concrete floor would be poured and blocks would be cemented together around the inner perimeter to form a wall just a few feet high to protect the fabric from contact with molten metals if there is a spill. Powerful air filtration systems will be needed and workers will wear filter masks as there might be noxious vapors of metal in the air and particles of metal from grinders, lathes, drill presses, etc. Powerful air conditioning units too cool the chambers will also be required. The AC units could dump waste heat into space with radiators shielded from the Sun. |
| conveyor belt is about 5 ft wide, leaving 5 ft on each side for parts bins, workers and robots. |
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