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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Why not use lunar concrete for interplanetary spaceship hulls? There could be thin steel or poly pressure badder inside, but just a thought. Seems like steel reinforced concrete might even be a little safer out there in all the solar radiation? Plus it doesn't take as much energy to create as does steel or aluminum.

Regular concrete weighs about 150 lbs/cuft and aluminum weighs about 165 lbs/cuft on earth. (Steel is about 500).

So steel on the moon weighs about 1/2 what aluminum weighs here, and concrete (by volume) would only weigh 25 lbs/cuft. Obviously, you need more volume of concrete to make stuff, and you need a lotta steel in it to get tensile strength, but for compressive qualities and raw sheilding, it's pretty good stuff, right? They're always making canoes out of it at the Universities....!

21 posted on 01/26/2004 6:03:54 AM PST by sam_paine (X .................................)
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To: sam_paine
Aren't the possibilities exciting?!
22 posted on 01/26/2004 6:07:42 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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