Index History Sol System Archipelago Technology Notes

Lunar Infrastructure

The major Lunar cities are linked by sub-surface rail tunnels. These provide the safest and most convenient method of transportation across Luna. Even in an age of self-replicating machines, such tunnels are expensive, and so only the most important and populous regions are linked.

An extensive network of maglev tracks criss-cross the Lunar surface, linking mines, cities, scientific facilities, private homesteads and other settlements. The maglev network is vital for the transport of ice across Luna from the large water extraction plants in the polar craters.

Many of the settlements in Luna are small, remote homesteads or minor mines. It would be uneconomic to link many of these to the maglev network, and so they are accessible only by road. Roads are also common across the longest-settled regions of Luna, where they provided the only transport infrastructure before the building of monorail and tube lines.

Travel by rover across the surface is slow and dangerous, especially during solar flares. To provide travellers with some measure of protection during periods of maximum solar activity, there are roadside radiation shelters at regular intervals. Even so, nobody travels on the surface unless there is no alternative.

In the developed regions the roads are surrounded by wreckage of accidents, refuse and machinery in vacuum storage, all the detritus of industrial society. For most of their lengths, though, they cut through the pristine, grey desolation of untouched Luna. The stark, vacuum-sharp beauty of this wilderness attracts many tourists from Earth and the Orbitals.

Interface Transport

Most interface traffic passes through the Tsukuyomi beanstalk, but there are still a number of older terminals in Lunar orbit. Transfer vessels from Earth, Mars, the Belt or the Lagrange habitats can dock at one of these stations to transfer goods or people to or from landers. The largest are Anders, Borman, Collins, Evans, Gordon, Lovell, Mattingly, Roosa, Stafford and Worden Orbitals.

Many acceleration-tolerant cargoes are still boosted into Lunar or Earth orbit from one of the huge railgun tracks situated in the industrial networks around the cities.

The future of Ad Astra

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