REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix (09/17/82)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC> It's not necessary to run our remote-mining-robots around the <lunar> clock. It's hard to get good lighting at night (ever try to work under a car at night using artificial light?), so why not use solar energy for both energy and lighting, and shut down things 2 weeks out of each month? It's not like humans who will die if they don't get fresh oxygen at least once every 3 minutes, and thus have to (on the moon) have their CO2-->O2 devices running even at night. The 2-week rest will give us time to plan the next 2-week "day" of activities. Later when we get ourself bootstrapped to have some source other than solar power we might try running at night if it's cost-effective to provide artificial light and non-solar electricity.