Fiberglass space habitats

[Thomas Kirby]

How about glass fiber for the construction of space habitats? Manufacture the fiber on the moon, wind it on spools, run it through a fabricator that can "weave" the fiber into structural parts and impregnate it with some kind of silicone or similar material to seal in air. Can we then manufacture a space habitat that can maintain its structural integrity for thousands of years? The trouble with any metal is that it will eventually corrode away, and silicon dioxide and silicate minerals are a lot more common and may be easier to use this way. A thick matrix of fiberglass would be very hard for anything to pierce. If the material is "woven" using fibers of lengths of hundreds of meters, it will distribute impact energies very well. And talk about resistance to ripping. Any puncture is going to stay its original size.

[insane_alien]

the thing is that the moon is crap for that kind of thing i don't think that there is that much carbon on or near the surface and the major components of the dust is aluminium. also i read somewhere that fibre glass is leaky and would eventually vent your atmosphere. they already have designs for an inflatable habitat.

[ydoaPs]

The trouble with any metal is that it will eventually corrode away, and silicon dioxide and silicate minerals are a lot more common and may be easier to use this way.

metal corrodes in space? i am not sure this is true. i thought most corrosion is caused by oxidation. i am not sure how metal would corrode in space.

[Thomas Kirby]

I'm looking for silicon, not carbon. Fiberglass, silicone, plus maybe some other semifluid substance to make a better sealer. Fiberglass would be leaky if it were just fiberglass cloth. Make it a teflon or silicone impregnated cloth, you've got a more airtight combination. Make it a material that can be re-annealed by heat, and warming it can fix leaks that do develop. More sealer could be poured in too. I'm visualizing many layers of impregnated fiberglass, several inches thick if at all possible.

 

What the moon isn't all that great for is metals if I understand correctly, although there ought to be some areas absolutely crammed with meteoric iron. How long were they able to mine the iron from the crater in Arizona?

 

Yourdad: Metal corrodes in space from the inside out, like a sealed can of acid, only more slowly. Just plain condensation is bad enough, but you have the action of bacteria and small amounts of organic residues like human sweat, plus chemical released from the equipment. Glass and silicone pretty much do not corrode under those circumstances.

[MattC]

Metal may corrode slowly from the inside, but it could be easily coated with something that wouldn't.

[insane_alien]

whoops sorry i was reading something about carbon fibre before this and got a bit mixed up. What about aluminium? that doesn't corrode past a thin layer of oxidation on the surface. The moon also has that in its crust. just cover the thing in lunar regolith to protect from radiation and there you have it.

[Pleiades]

What you are looking for is called GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic), commonly just called “fiberglass” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-reinforced_plastic).

 

I’ve often wondered why they can’t make space vehicles with GRP since it’s light, strong, can withstand quite a bit of pressure and is air/water tight. The main reason I came up with is that it doesn’t block you from the type of radiation commonly encountered in space. You could get around this limitation with shielding, possible metal or even water, if the hull is designed to have pockets in it for storing water.