The big problem with space is overheating. Space may be cold but there is no way to get rid of that heat except for radiators. Convection doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Right, but conduction does work on the moon. You have the ground as a giant heatsink. While the surface does get pretty hot in daylight, I am guessing that heat doesn’t go very deep so you could probably bury your cooling lines.
It just requires humans up there to dig and bury the cooling lines.
it’s kindof neither.
Our normal sense of hot/cold is a measure of how hot the particles around us are. Space has so few particles, that whole paradigm breaks down.
Technically space is hot since temperature is a function of average particle movement and spaceborne particles are mostly moving stupid fast. Fortunately there are very few particles in any given volume of “empty” space so that translates to space being “cold”.
The lunar exosphere is too skimpy to trap or spread the Sun’s energy, so differences between sunlit and shadowed areas on the Moon are extreme. Temperatures near the Moon’s equator can spike to 250°F (121°C) in daylight, then plummet after nightfall to -208°F (-133°C).
It’s already pretty cold
The big problem with space is overheating. Space may be cold but there is no way to get rid of that heat except for radiators. Convection doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Right, but conduction does work on the moon. You have the ground as a giant heatsink. While the surface does get pretty hot in daylight, I am guessing that heat doesn’t go very deep so you could probably bury your cooling lines.
It just requires humans up there to dig and bury the cooling lines.
Probably a stupid question but how can it be cold if there’s no heat transfer?
it’s kindof neither.
Our normal sense of hot/cold is a measure of how hot the particles around us are. Space has so few particles, that whole paradigm breaks down.
Technically space is hot since temperature is a function of average particle movement and spaceborne particles are mostly moving stupid fast. Fortunately there are very few particles in any given volume of “empty” space so that translates to space being “cold”.
Only at night.
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/weather-on-the-moon/
Which sounds like a pretty big challenge for a nuclear reactor. Maybe they only plan to put them on the poles?