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Solar Dawn

Power, Water and Air

I intend describing the power, water and air supplied to the colonies and space stations of Solar Dawn in this blog.

Power

Solar energy plays a significant role in Solar Dawn. At the moon, a solar collector satellite at the Earth-moon L2 position collects the solar rays and converts it to high energy microwaves and beams it to the moon surface. The L2 position allows the collector to receive energy from the sun at all times. It remains in line of sight to the lunar colonies at the lunar south pole. On the lunar surface, a receiving station receives the microwaves and converts them to electricity to distribute to the two colonies. The satellite has an extra microwave transmitter to send power to the L4 space station.

Asgard, the international lunar colony, has a micro nuclear fusion backup generator for emergencies or when the conduct maintenance on the solar power supply.

The space stations have their own solar power supplies for their electricity needs.

Mars has huge solar collectors like the moon but with a greater surface area to account for its greater distance from the sun.

Water

All space-based human settlements recycle their water.

On the moon, they harvest water from the soil with large water harvesting machines. They scoop soil from the moon and raise its temperature to -50C. This is hot enough to sublime water trapped in it. Cold metal plates condense and collect the water vapor generated.

Mars has an ample supply of ice beneath its surface that the colonists collect as needed to top up their system.

Air

The lunar colonies and space stations generate oxygen from minerals collected from rocks on the lunar surface or from asteroids with electrolysis. They extract the oxygen by electrolysing the oxides in the rocks and collecting the resultant oxygen gas. This method can refine metals from the rocks, too.

Mars electrolyses the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for its oxygen needs.

 

And that concludes this blog post. Hope you enjoyed reading it and learned of the potential future supply alternatives for these important resources. I will discuss food, carbon dioxide and farming in my next blog.

See you then.

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