>>10639>Yes, in fact, they will, that's one reason why it's such an attractive engineering project. You can also make them dramatically simpler outside an atmosphere when you don't have to worry about the kind of weathering you experience on Earth.good point. there's no pesky oxygen
>That's unnecessary because lunar photovoltaics are so much better than Earth photovoltaics because they don't have an atmosphere to contend with.there's only 30% more sunlight hitting the moon. not super impressive. this and the lack of atmosphere makes the thermal situation difficult. more on this later
>You seem unaware of this but the moon actually has next to no atmosphereyes, and this is the problem. the moon is surrounded by what's called a dusty plasma. dust gets thrown around by electrostatic effects and there's no atmosphere to stop this. this is worst at the terminator, where the surface charge changes from positive to negative at sunset (and opposite at sunrise), which throws enough dust around that austronauts were able to see light reflecting off it. look up the "streamers" seen during Apollo. t someone who has actually worked with this stuff
what's even worse is the thermal situation. semiconductors degrade exponentially faster the hotter they get. space thermal system rely on coatings with wavelength dependent emissivity. you can't use this on a PV, obviously, at least not on the front, or you'd reflect away the very energy you're trying to absorb. your surroundings are 130°C, and your PV cells will likely be too. it
might be possible to cover the entire surface underneath the cells with multi layer insulation (MLI) blankets. if you get the angles right then the temperature drops to around 65°C ((130+273)/2^0.25-273). assuming you can make them in-situ of course. there's aluminium up there at least
>People far smarter than you have been thinking about this idea for far longer. It's been feasible since the '80s.I've read many of these papers. it's a waste of labour compared to making do with Earth