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Subject: 
Re: Good idea! (was Re: Can't we all just get along?)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.space, lugnet.trains
Date: 
Wed, 12 Feb 2003 22:02:04 GMT
Viewed: 
1593 times
  
In lugnet.space, Manfred Moolhuysen writes:
I've been thinking, in reality, this would not be a bad idea at all. Suppose
one day we Earthlings would set aside our silly endless disagreements, work
together and start space explaration. Why on Earth...eh ...Moon would we
allow cars to ruin the beatifull Moon surface with tracks randomly fanning
out from moonbases in all directions. Remind that when you leave a trail on
the moon, it's bound to stay there forever! *) Therefore, I would vote for
public transport for all base to base surface transfers on the moon.

What we really need is robots to comb the surface and rake "random" patterns
into the surface to help make it look nice.

But I do think some sort of rail-based transport would be the way to get
around up there once enough infrastructure is in place.

In my view, the sharp edged blocky appearence of the train would be totally
practical also. Why bother to streamline, when there is no atmosphere to
drag you down! The concession made with the somewhat crudely shaped, sloped
nose, clearly has been made on estethical grounds only, manly to give the
tourists visiting from Earth a minimal feel of the Sci-Fi modernism that
they expect to find here.

I had originally intended to do a tapered nose at each end and have a simple
boxy car between (like in the train set I was thematically copying), but I
ended up going fully over into classic space to do cars styled for that.
Who knows- this might go onto the moonbase layout at the next NWBrickCon.
That would mean laying rails all over in addition to the monorails, though.
I'm not sure how practical that will be.

*) Funny side story in this context:
In 1971 astronaut Alan Shepard on the Apollo 14 mission made an attempt to
break the record for longest golf drive by hitting a golfball on the surface
of the Moon. Despite the ball flying very far helped by low gravity and
absence of drag, his attempt has been disqualified by both USGA and Royal
and Ancient, because of severe violation of golf etiquette: Shepard failed
to rake the bunker  before leaving the course.

Heh- it sounds to me like Alan Shepard got cheated!  On the other hand, it
wouldn't be a "world record" anyway.

--
Tony Hafner
www.hafhead.com



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Good idea! (was Re: Can't we all just get along?)
 
(...) Could you convert it to run on monorails? Allister (21 years ago, 12-Feb-03, to lugnet.space, lugnet.trains)

Message is in Reply To:
  Good idea! (was Re: Can't we all just get along?)
 
(...) I've been thinking, in reality, this would not be a bad idea at all. Suppose one day we Earthlings would set aside our silly endless disagreements, work together and start space explaration. Why on Earth...eh ...Moon would we allow cars to (...) (21 years ago, 8-Feb-03, to lugnet.space, lugnet.trains)

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