Lava tubes safe enough for Moon base [View all]

[hunter]

By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website, The Woodlands, Texas

Natural tunnels known as lava tubes could safely house permanent bases on the Moon, scientists have said.

The underground volcanic structures have previously been proposed as ideal sites for human settlements.

Scientists have now assessed how stable these features might be, and found that tubes of 1km in size and bigger would be structurally sound.

They could protect against the challenges posed by the lunar environment.



http://m.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31953052

It might be worth sending robot explorers to the moon to find and explore some of these.

Maybe they'll find this:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_on_the_Moon

As a vacation spot I think low gravity would be a lot more fun than freefall.

Imagine playing basketball on a court the size of a football field. Your height wouldn't matter nearly so much as how high you could jump.