The brick heat exchanger should be buried under regolith for thermal insulation. Got the idea from old open hearth steel furnaces. Will it work? Only the future will tell.
When the pipes get old, we will send an inspection robot called a "pig' up the pipes to examine the inner lining for cracks and chipping etc. via TV cam. To get around right angle sections we will need a "snake." If the ceramic inner linining is worn we will bore it out and slip in a new ceramic sleeve and then and antenna to heat, almost melt, and seal the inner surface so that liquid cast iron and steel won't seep into the spaces between particles in the sintered insulating layer of ceramic that is most likely to be titanium dioxide, TiO2, made from illmenite by hydrogen reduction.
At first, tubes, beams, griders, plates, finsihed parts, tanks of oxygen, etc. will be launched in modules by mass drivers to the L5 construction shack to expand it. When smelting, casting and machiniing is possible at the construction shack simple Ingots of steel will be launched by mass drivers on the Moon to the L5 construction shack. Also ingots of aluminum, magnesium, titanium, glass, silicon and containers of glass-glass composites. These will be turned into more habitat and work modules, solar panels, reflectors, platforms, machine tools etc. The advantage of smelting and working at L5 is that solar energy is available 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year. Unlike the Moon where we have Sun only half the time. Even when we have a ring of solar power stations around the Moon to supply constant electrical power we will only have solar thermal energy for direct smelting half the time on Luna. Of course, we could smelt by day and use electrically powered tools to make parts and do assembly by night when the lunar solar power station riing is built. We could even launch mass driver loads by night. Thus, in time, the Moon's productive output will increase and the L5 construction shack output will increase and even more shacks will be built. Progress will be slow at first, then climb exponentially up the learning curve. Will we need a 10,000 persons space colonly, or will we use robots extensively to build SPS and build space colonies later? Or wil the first space colonies emerge in orbit around Mars where the moonlets Deimos and Phobos could supply an abundance of materials for orbital construction? We shall see. |
