Digging Holes on the Moon
Dirt: the bleeding obvious radiation barrier:
The best way to protect astronauts living and working on the Moon from harmful solar radiation is being debated by lunar scientists.Burying a habitat module under lunar dirt is one option currently being discussed by scientists on a lunar discussion group. Another option, to protect astronauts from solar flares when working away from their base, might be to set off explosives to create an emergency trench as a shield.
Well, I guess when your alternative is getting irradiated by a solar flare and possibly dying a nasty death, the risks from being sandblasted by flying regolith and pelted by falling debris might seem at least a little bit appealing.
Using a bulldozer or other robot to push soil over a habitat module would not be easy. If the bulldozer’s weight is reduced to one-sixth its Earth weight on the Moon, the force it is able to push with is also reduced by one-sixth.“That means it gets stuck much easier,” explains Edward McCullough, principal scientist in advanced aero analysis at Boeing Phantom Works in Huntington Beach, California, US.
One hopes that the Boeing guys considered the obvious fix for that: piling regolith or rocks on the bulldozer itself to add weight.
