This will help solve the problem of clogging technology when landing on the Earth’s satellite.
Leading researcher at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Bagrov proposed an original method for building the future lunar cosmodrome. Speaking at the Royal Readings, the scientist said that the future construction will require lunar regolith and a solar 3D printer.
According to the “MK” author of the work, it will be necessary to build a cosmodrome because of too aggressive lunar dust. It has abrasive properties and the highest penetrating power, and therefore it can harm the health of astronauts and even damage the equipment. So that when landing the jet stream of the brake engines of the landing gear does not raise clouds of this dust, the scientist proposed to create a cosmodrome on the Moon in the form of a dust-free monolithic platform measuring 100 by 100 meters.
To do this, at the construction site it will be necessary first to clear the area of dust from the space dozer. By the way, the regolith on the surface of the moon has a loose structure only in the upper layer 1-2 cm thick, and under it is a dense layer whose particles are closely interconnected.
It is proposed to melt the collected dust in a solar 3D-printer with putting the resulting monolithic mass on a solid layer of the chosen site. The melting process itself will be carried out with the help of sunlight, focused by a concave 4-meter mirror. Experts estimate that in one lunar day (two terrestrial weeks) one 3D printer will recycle 12 tons of regolith, which can produce 50 square meters of durable dust-free coating 10 centimeters thick, and by the arrival of the cosmonauts, an automatic robot builder will
