And anorthite is made of aluminum, silicone, calcium, and oxygen.Īnd if you smelt that, which means you break it apart into its component elements, you end up with, well, aluminum, calcium, silicon, and oxygen. And so basically, the moon– the Lunar Highlands area– that’s the part that’s bumpy as opposed to the smooth part– the Lunar Highlands, about 85% of the rocks just laying out on the surface are a mineral called anorthite. What was the hardest thing– what was the hardest calculation you had to make or learn about?ĪNDY WEIR: Well, basically, I had to learn a lot about smelting. IRA FLATOW: So you became a lunar expert. Then I spent about a year working out all the science. That’s some major tourist draw, that sort of stuff. Artemis is very close to the Apollo 11 landing site. And so I based the city off of the economics of Caribbean resort towns and stuff. Now we can make a city on the moon that has a tourism base. But I came up with some numbers on how much it would cost in the future to send stuff to the moon, and it becomes worthwhile to have a tourist economy. And actually, I wrote a whole paper on that, and you can find that at “Business Insider” if you want to see it. So the conceit of “Artemis” is that the price to low Earth orbit has been driven down far enough that middle class people can afford to get into space. A city doesn’t exist without some economic reason. And the first thing I had to do was come up with why is there a city on the moon.
Well, the first thing I needed was I wanted– well, I set out with a goal of saying, OK, I want to write a story that takes place in a city on the moon. Tell us about the city and the meticulous way you laid out an incredible colony on the moon there.
Know I’m not laughing, but I do see what you did there. Is it not lunacy to talk about a lunar city?ĪNDY WEIR: I see what you did there. Andy Weir is here to break down with what it takes to hack it on the moon. In his new book “Artemis,” Andy Weir maps out a blueprint for what a working city would look like 240,000 miles from Earth.Īnd he applies that same type of meticulous research and geeky engineering he used in his last book, “The Martian,” to figure out how you would do things like smelt aluminum on the moon, build an economy, or most importantly, make drinkable beer. So what would it take not to just land on the moon this time and explore it, but to really live and work there, to build a lunar city? My next guest has thought at all about this. And ever since, we’ve been talking about going back. Later in the hour, we’re going to explore the brainy antics of a common neighbor for many of us– crows.īut first, the last Apollo mission to the moon happened nearly– what– half a century ago. IRA FLATOW: This is “Science Friday.” I’m Ira Flatow, broadcasting today from WFPL Studios in Louisville Public Media right here in Louisville, Kentucky.
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