https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/northrop-grumman-wins-darpa-contract-for-a-railway-on-the-moon Safeguarding Humanity Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:54:09 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/northrop-grumman-wins-darpa-contract-for-a-railway-on-the-moon#comment-502807 Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:54:09 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/northrop-grumman-wins-darpa-contract-for-a-railway-on-the-moon#comment-502807 People tend to underestimate how large the other planets and major moons of our solar system actually are. For example, Mars is as large as all Earth’s continents combined!

]]> https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/northrop-grumman-wins-darpa-contract-for-a-railway-on-the-moon#comment-502806 Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:50:03 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2024/03/northrop-grumman-wins-darpa-contract-for-a-railway-on-the-moon#comment-502806 It makes sense to have some kind of surface or subsurface lunar transport system, especially if most or all future colonies there are to be interconnected. There’s only so far people can walk in a reasonable amount of time, especially without being exhausted by the end of the trip. Not to mention, the girth of the Moon is over 3000 kilometers, a distance average moon buggies couldn’t drive to (the lunar rovers the astronauts used on the Apollo missions were only designed to go a few kilometres). Perhaps some parts of the circum-lunar railroad could run through the lava tubes that exist on the Moon (the same lavatubes that could host entire towns) as somewhat of a lunar subway system. When you come to think about it, trains on the Moon make tons of sense, as when multiple bases and towns are established all over the Moon, people and cargo are bound to be regularly travelling between them.

]]>