From: quibbler247@yahoo.com   
      
   In article ,   
   alexterrell@yahoo.com says...   
   > There are reasons why it's advantageous to have a main lunar base at   
   > low latitude, and a water mining base at the poles.   
   >   
   > But how could cargo be transported bewteen the two. Would one option   
   > to be use pipes? A pipe laid a few thousand kilometres along the moons   
   > surface might weigh a thousand tons,   
      
   Obviously it depends on how wide and thick the pipe is, as well as the   
   material.  One inch diameter, tenth inch thick wall steel pipe weighs   
   about 1 pound per foot, so that may roughly be a metric ton per   
   kilometer.  I'd imagine that plastic tubing might weigh substantially   
   less.  For water transport one might make due with non-metallic pipes in   
   any event.   
      
      
   > but could continually tranport   
   > water, at least during the lunar day.   
   >   
   > During the lunar night, first hydrogen, and then oxygen,   
      
   Both hydrogen and oxygen can be highly corrosive and would need specially   
   coated and designed pipelines.   
      
      
   > could be   
   > piped back to the pole, where they would be combined to produce   
   > electricity.   
   >   
   > Is this feasible? Or does pumping water require too much energy. Is   
   > the moons topogrpahy to varied - the pipe would need to be on almost   
   > level ground.   
   >   
   > Are there easier ways of transporting goods across the moons surface?   
      
   How's 'bout a small caravan of tanker trucks that followed a smooth   
   graded, gravel covered road.  If you staged about 5 to 10 of these at   
   regular intervals each truck could unhitch its cargo tank and hand it off   
   to the next one.   
      
   >   
      
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