From: andromedanews@hotmail.com   
      
   Well, suppose we really decide to install a base on the moon, in a   
   relatively short term ..   
      
   What could be used there (on the Moon) to help reducing the weigh of   
   brought-from-earth hardware and commodities   
      
   could Lunar soil/dust be useful for anything more than radiation   
   protection   
      
   could a cave digged underground or on a crater side provide a good   
   airtight place to install lighter installation ...  I read that on   
   Mars, caves would be easily made airtight with some water vapor   
   freezing in the cracks ... Maybe the point is that Mars has 'fairly'   
   accessible water that moon does not have ?   
      
   Could the Lunar Soil be transformed possibly into some kind of concrete   
   material , or would even this be too difficult before ages   
      
   I think that aluminium and oxygen is common in lunar rock , can we   
   imagine credible ways to extract those materials ...  how to do that ?   
   using batch solar furnace to extract oxygen ?   
      
   Water remains a problem , bringing only hydrogen from earth may be more   
   economic but maybe only in a long future too ??   
      
   I seem to hear so many fantasmatic comments on the ways to install   
   cottages and datchas  on the Moon these days that I find hard to keep   
   head cold and feet on the (Moon) ground ;-)   
      
   --   
   Julie   
   "please save Yuri"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)