Токиогийн Shimizu корпораци Сарны хөрс ашиглан нарны эрчим хүч үйлдвэрлэх болон түүнийг Дэлхий рүү дамжуулах томоохон байгууламжийн үзэл баримтлалыг боловсруулжээ.
“Luna Ring” гэх энэхүү төсөл нь Сарны экваторыг тойруулан 11,000 км урт, 400 км хүртэлх өргөнтэй нарны зай хураагуурын бүсийг байгуулах зорилготой юм. Уг байгууламжийг барихад шаардлагатай бетон, шилэн эдлэлийг Сарны хөрс болон Дэлхийгээс авчирсан устөрөгчийг ашиглан гарган авах аж. Барилгын бүхий л ажлыг Дэлхийгээс удирдагдах автомат роботууд гүйцэтгэхээр төлөвлөжээ.
Сарны экватор дээр нарны гэрэл тасралтгүй тусдаг тул энэхүү бүс нь 13,000 тераватт эрчим хүч үйлдвэрлэх хүчин чадалтай байх боломжтой гэж зохион бүтээгчид үзэж байна. Үйлдвэрлэсэн эрчим хүчийг бичил долгион болон лазерын тусламжтайгаар Дэлхий рүү дамжуулж, хүлээн авах станцуудад цахилгаан эрчим хүч болгон хувиргах юм.
Тус компани 2035 онд бүтээн байгуулалтыг эхлүүлэх боломжтой гэж үзэж байгаа боловч энэ нь одоогоор зөвхөн үзэл баримтлалын түвшинд байгаа төсөл юм. Одоогоор уг төсөлд шаардлагатай санхүүжилт шийдэгдээгүй бөгөөд JAXA болон NASA-аас албан ёсны дэмжлэг аваагүй байна. Мөн зардлын хувьд 100 тэрбум ам.доллараас эхлээд их наяд хүртэлх ам.долларт хүрч болзошгүй гэсэн таамаглал бий.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
The plan starts with dirt. Lunar soil, combined with hydrogen brought from Earth, would yield oxygen and water. The water, mixed with sand and gravel, would make concrete. Heat from the sun would turn out blocks and glass fiber.
Almost none of the work would be done by people. Robots steered from Earth would do the building, with self-propelled production plants and a small team of astronauts in support.
“The sand on the moon is an oxide compound, so it would be possible to produce oxygen and water if hydrogen were brought from the earth,” says the company behind the project.
What the robots would build is a belt of solar cells running all the way around the Moon’s equator. It would be 6,800 miles (11,000 kilometers) long and, at its widest, 250 miles (400 kilometers) across, and the electricity it made would be beamed to Earth.
The design is called Luna Ring. It comes from Shimizu Corporation, a Tokyo construction company founded in 1804. Its ordinary business is architecture, civil engineering and general contracting, with revenue of about $15 billion a year.
A Power Station That is Always in Daylight
Any single spot on the Moon gets about 327.5 hours of daylight followed by about 327.5 hours of darkness. A ring around the equator always has part of its length in the sun. Nothing gets in the way of the light, either. The Moon has no clouds, storms or rain, and sunlight arrives there at about 1,361 watts per square meter, against a peak of about 1,000 on the surface of Earth.
Cables would carry the electricity to the side of the Moon that always faces Earth. There it would be converted into microwave and laser beams and aimed at the ground, where rectennas, antennas that turn the beams back into electricity, would receive it.
Shimizu puts the system’s maximum output at 13,000 terawatts, roughly 500 times the world’s current electricity consumption. By the company’s reckoning, a solar panel on Earth produces about one-twentieth of what the same panel would produce in space.
A Proposal That Drew Notice After Fukushima
Luna Ring found its audience after March 11, 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami caused the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. In the months that followed, more than half of Japan’s 54 reactors sat idle.
Tetsuji Yoshida, president of CSP Japan, Shimizu’s space consulting group, made the case to ABC News that July.
“In space, there is constant light hitting the solar panels,” he said. “When all the energy created from those panels reaches Earth, there will be no need to produce energy from coal, oil, or biomass.”
An economist interviewed for the same report was unpersuaded. “Lunar solar energy sounds good in theory, but costs too much,” said Masanori Komori of the Institute of Energy Economics in Japan.
“If we can continue to do the research, we think there’s a huge chance this could become reality,” Yoshida said.
No Price and No Start
Shimizu named 2035 as the earliest year construction could begin and allowed 30 years for the job. The robots’ operators would work with a lag: the communication delay between Earth and the Moon, 238,855 miles away, is about 2.6 seconds.
The company has not published a cost. Outside estimates start at $100 billion and run into the trillions. For comparison, the International Space Station, which weighs about 420,000 kilograms, cost roughly $150 billion.
Nor is there money behind it. The project has no funding, and neither JAXA, Japan’s space agency, nor NASA has endorsed it.
Pieces of the idea have been tested at small scale in orbit. The California Institute of Technology demonstrated wireless power transmission in space in June 2023, and the European Space Agency is studying space-based solar power through a program called SOLARIS.
Luna Ring is one entry in a series of concept designs that Shimizu calls its dreams. The others include a pyramid city over Tokyo Bay, an island city named Green Float and an underwater city named Ocean Spiral.
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