Word: vacuums
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Metallurgical research would also benefit from the moon's vacuum, in which pure metals with maximum densities could be produced. Manufacturers who need elaborately protected "clean rooms" on earth for their production processes would find that the moon itself is a huge clean room, with no atmosphere to circulate dust and other contaminants around assembly areas...
...lunar environment is also ideal for cyclotrons and other devices that accelerate subatomic particles in a vacuum. For the same reason, electron beam-welding?which also requires a high vacuum?would be facilitated on the moon. Another joining process, cold-welding, could become an important part of lunar industry. In a vacuum, two perfectly clean and smooth metal surfaces?uncontaminated by oxides that are formed in the earth's atmosphere ?can be welded solidly together without heat and with little pressure...
Even the lunar vacuum itself may some day become a salable commodity. Says Industrial Research magazine: "It is conceivable that a simple sealed pressure shell containing literally nothing inside, or an insulated package of a material cooled to ?441° F. or lower, with suitable 'vacuum locks,' could be shipped to earth ports intact?for a price less than evacuation or helium cooling on mother earth...
Valuable as the moon's vacuum may be, there are more palpable treasures. Some scientists, assuming that the moon was created when the earth was, some 4.5 billion years ago, calculate that about 10 trillion tons of meteors have fallen on the lunar surface. From their analysis of the composition of the relatively few meteors that reach the earth's surface (most are burned up by the atmosphere), they estimate that meteors have deposited 450 billion tons of iron, 30 billion tons of nickel, 10 billion tons of phosphorous, 9 billion tons of carbon, 6 billion tons of copper...
...their animosities into space. But it is more likely that in the long run, those who go out to the stars will leave behind the barriers of nation and race that divide them now. There is a hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags will not wave in a vacuum; our present tribal conflicts cannot be sustained in the hostile environment of space. Whether we like it or not, our children will find new loyalties when they set foot on the moon, or Mars, or the satellites of the giant planets. They did so in these United States a hundred...