posted on Jun, 18 2004 @ 11:02 AM
NUCLEAR SUBSELENE TUNNELING
MACHINES ON THE MOON?
From the book "Underground Bases and Tunnels",
by Richard Sauder, Ph.D.
No discussion of government plans for secret tunneling projects
would be complete without considering NASA's plans for tunneling
on the Moon.
1980s documents from Los Alamos National Laboratory and from Texas
A&M University (under contract to NASA) indicate that there are
plans to use "nuclear subselene tunneling machines" to melt tunnels
under the Moon's surface, to make living, working, mining and transportation
facilities for a lunar colony.
A 1986 Los Alamos report calls for using a fission powered, nuclear
subselene to provide the heat to "melt rock and form a self-supporting,
glass-lined tunnel suitable for Maglev or other high-speed transport
modes." The report recommends burrowing beneath the surface because
of the harsh lunar environment. (This would
apply to Mars as well.) It further mentions that the tunnels
would need to be hundreds, or thousands of kilometers long..." The
actual subselenes would be automatic devices, remotely operated.
In 1986, Los Alamos estimated each subselene could be built for
about $50 million and transported to the Moon for anywhere from
$155 million to $2,323 million. The price tag may seem exorbitantly
high, but rest assured that there is easily that much, and more,
available in the military's "black" budget for covert projects.
It should be noted that the report did not specify how the subselenes
and their crews would be transported to the Moon.
A 1988 Texas A&M study outlined plans for a slightly different
model of lunar tunnel boring machine. The Texas A&M "Lunar Tunneler"
would employ a "mechanical head to shear its way through the lunar
material while creating a rigid ceramic-like lining". Essentially,
this kind of machine would be a hybrid, mechanical TBM (Tunnel Boring
Machine) that incorporates elements of the nuclear powered subselene.
Although the machine would be nuclear powered it would have a mechanical
cutter head that would bore through the lunar subsurface. Just behind
the cutter head would be a "heating section" that would "melt a
layer of lunar material within the excavated tunnel to a depth of
only a few inches. This molten material could then be cooled to
form a rigid ceramic material suitable for lining the interior of
the tunnel."
The Texas A&M designers considered a couple of different muck
disposal schemes. The two variants of the first called for the muck
to be transferred vertically to the surface and either dumped or
"sprayed" into a tailings pile. The second concept called for the
use of special, tunnel dump trucks that would carry the muck out
of the tunnel and dump it on the lunar surface. The designers recommend
use of a SP-100 fission reactor for power, using liquid lithium
heat pipes of the sort developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory
for the nuclear subterrene.
A second Texas A&M study, released in May 1988, also recommended
use of a lithium cooled nuclear reactor as the power source for
a lunar tunneler. In the second tunneler design, there are no mechanical
tunneling components. Instead, the cone-shaped, nuclear powered
tunneler melts its way through the subsurface like a subterrene.
Some of the melted rock and soil is plastered against the tunnel
walls to form a glass-like ceramic tunnel lining. The rest of the
melted muck (called regolith) is passed out of the back of the tunneler
and then carried to the surface for the disposal by the dump trucks
that follow the tunneler through the tunnel.
I don't know if there are nuclear tunneling machines secretly
making permanent bases and tunnels on the moon. But NASA plans certainly
give cause to wonder.
(And some of the images from the Clementine
and Apollo missions of the numerous anomalous structures on the
surface of moon, especially the near infrared images which Richard
Hoagland believes show a network of structures both above and below
the lunar surface, give even more cause to wonder.)
(reprinted with permission)