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Lava Tubes On Moon And Mars
The idea that lava tubes might offer shelter to interplanetary travelers shone brightly in the past week. The first example proposes jumping robots for Mars:
( Side view representation of a Martian lava tube with skylight and rille entrance )
...exploration of these lava tubes poses significant challenges due to their sheer size, geometric complexity, uneven terrain, steep slopes, collapsed sections, significant obstacles, and unstable surfaces. Such challenges may hinder traditional wheeled rover exploration.To overcome these challenges, legged robots and particularly jumping systems have been proposed as potential solutions. Jumping legged robots utilize legs to both walk and jump. This allows them to traverse uneven terrain and steep slopes more easily compared to wheeled or tracked systems.
In the context of Martian lava tube exploration, jumping legged robots would be particularly useful due to their ability to jump over big boulders, gaps, and obstacles, as well as to descend and climb steep slopes. This would allow them to explore and map such caves, and possibly collect samples from areas that may otherwise be inaccessible.
The second describes a new analysis of data showing that large underground chambers may exist on the moon:
...Leonardo Carrer at the University of Trento in Italy and his colleagues re-analysed radar observations of ... the Mare Tranquillitatis pit, which were taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2010.Using simulations and comparisons to lava tubes on Earth, the researchers found that the Mare Tranquillitatis pit seems to lead to a large cave buried at least 130 metres underground. The cave seems to be about 45 metres wide and at least 30 metres long, although it could be even larger.
(Via NewScientist.)
Science fiction Grandmaster Robert A. Heinlein described such structures in detail in his 1957 novel Menace from Earth:
Most of the stuff written about Bats' Cave gives a wrong impression. It's the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies have - the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it's needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it's just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater.
Never one to neglect the adventuresome spirit of American youth, Heinlein obligingly provided lunar colonists with Storer-Gulls Wings for recreational use of lunar lava tubes.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/14/2024)
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