karn (09/20/82)
This was mentioned a couple of months ago. They won't work as intended, because the moon's axis is inclined to the plane of its orbit by 6.5 degrees and its mean orbital inclination to the ecliptic is a little over 5 degrees. Hence, the moon's poles experience the same kind of seasonal day and night as do the earth's poles and cannot be used as sites for continuous solar power. However, the moon's "arctic" and "antarctic" circles are much smaller than the earth's because of the lesser tilt of the rotational axis. The only place near the earth that is suitable for continuous 24-hour solar illumination (that I can think of) is a polar sun-synchronous orbit where the orbit plane coincides with the terminator and the altitude is enough such that seasonal movements of the earth's shadow don't intersect the orbit. Phil Karn