Method for Making Giant Lunar Telescopes

[Bill Morris]

Here's the NASA article on this:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/lunar_telescopes.html

But my concept on how to do this is different and has the advantage that it could be done easily by solar-powered robotic equipment. (Maybe their method of construction would be mostly automated, as well.) My thinking on building any kind of massive structures on the moon has been to do selective laser sintering with moon dust, which would create monolithic moon rocks of any desired size and shape. This method has been used on Earth to create objects first of aluminum but more recently of various metals, building solid metal object from metallic dust. With moon dust, you would end up with rock, basically, and it would be a bit radioactive. The last stage would basically be the same as theirs, in the case of a telescopic mirror: coating and polishing.

 

[JustAFriend]

Much easier to build on the moon than optical telescopes: radio telescopes.

Find a nice 10-20mile diameter crater and spray an ultra-thin layer of metal, mount a receiver on a really tall mast in the middle and you've got a SETI machine that'll outperform anything on Earth. Put it on the backside of the Moon in the shadow of Earth's continuous storm of radio waves and listen for ET civilizations halfway across the galaxy.

The astronomical work you could do with a 20mile-diameter radio telescope would be enormous and it would be far easier than building an optical telescope.

A far better start for the money.....