Building a Moon Base: Part 1 - Challenges and Hazards
Written by Ian O'Neill
So, we want to go to the Moon. Why? Because the Moon is an ideal "staging post" for us to accumulate materials and manpower outside of the Earth's deep gravitational well. From the Moon we can send missions into deep space and ferry colonists to Mars. Tourists may also be interested in a short visit. Mining companies will no doubt want to set up camp there. The pursuit of science is also a major draw. For what ever reason, to maintain a presence on this small dusty satellite, we will need to build a Moon base. Be it for the short-term or long-term, man will need to colonize the Moon. But where would we live? How could we survive on this hostile landscape? This is where structural engineers will step in, to design, and build, the most extreme habitats ever conceived…
Manned missions to Mars take up a lot of the limelight insofar as colonization efforts are concerned, so it's about time some focus is aimed at the ongoing and established concepts for colonization of the Moon. We currently have a means of getting there (after all, it is nearly 40 years ago since Apollo 11) and our technology is sufficiently advanced to sustain life in space, the next step is to begin building… In this first installment of "Building a Moon Base", we look at the immediate issues facing engineers when planning habitats on a lunar landscape.
"Building a Moon Base" is based on research by Haym Benaroya and Leonhard Bernold ("Engineering of lunar bases")
The debate still rages as to whether man should settle on the Moon or Mars first. Mars is often considered to be the ultimate challenge for mankind: to live on a planet other than Earth. But looking down on us during cloudless nights is the bright and attainable Moon. From here we can see the details of the lunar landscape with the naked eye, it is so close astronomically when compared with the planets, that many believe that the Moon should be our first port of call before we begin the six month (at best) voyage to the Red Planet. It also helps as we've already been there…
Opinion has shifted somewhat in recent years from the "Mars Direct" plan (in the mid-1990s) to the "Moon First" idea, and this shift has recently been highlighted by US President George W. Bush when in 2004 he set out plans for re-establishing a presence on the Moon before we can begin planning for Mars. It makes sense; many human physiological issues remain to be identified, plus the technology for colonization can only be tested to its full extent when… well… colonizing.
Understanding how the human body will adapt to life in low-G and how new technologies will perform in a location close enough to home will be not only be assuring to lunar colonists and astronauts, it will also be sensible. Exploring space is dangerous enough, minimizing the risk of mission failure will be critical to the future of manned exploration of the Solar System.
So where do you start when designing a moon base? High up on the structural engineers "to do" list would be the damage building materials may face when exposed to a vacuum. Damage from severe temperature variations, high velocity micrometeorite impacts, high outward forces from pressurized habitats, material brittleness at very low temperatures and cumulative abrasion by high energy cosmic rays and solar wind particles will all factor highly in the planning phase. Once all the hazards are outlined, work can begin on the structures themselves.
The Moon exerts a gravitational pull 1/6th that of the Earth, so engineers will be allowed to build less gravity-restricted structures. Also, local materials should be used where and when possible. The launch costs from Earth for building supplies would be astronomical, so building materials should be mined rather than imported. Lunar regolith (fine grains of pulverized Moon rock) for example can be used to cover parts of habitats to protect settlers from cancer-causing cosmic rays and provide insulation. According to studies, a regolith thickness of least 2.5 meters is required to protect the human body to a "safe" background level of radiation. High energy efficiency will also be required, so the designs must incorporate highly insulating materials to insure minimum loss of heat. Additional protection from meteorite impacts must be considered as the Moon has a near-zero atmosphere necessary to burn up incoming space debris. Perhaps underground dwellings would be a good idea?
The actual construction of a base will be very difficult in itself. Obviously, the low-G environment poses some difficulty to construction workers to get around, but the lack of an atmosphere would prove very damaging. Without the buffering of air around drilling tools, dynamic friction will be amplified during drilling tasks, generating huge amounts of heat. Drill bits and rock will fuse, hindering progress. Should demolition tasks need to be carried out, explosions in a vacuum would create countless high velocity missiles tearing through anything in their path, with no atmosphere to slow them down. (You wouldn't want to be eating dinner in an inflatable habitat during mining activities should a rock fragment be flying your way…) Also, the ejected dust would obscure everything and settle, statically, on machinery and contaminate everything. Decontamination via air locks will not be efficient enough to remove all the dust from spacesuits, Moon dust would be ingested and breathed in - a health risk we will not fully comprehend until we are there.
- Building a Moon Base: Part 1 - Challenges and Hazards
- Building a Moon Base: Part 2 - Habitat Concepts
- Building a Moon Base: Part 3 - Structural Design
- Building Moon Base: Part 4 - Infrastructure and Transportation
"Building a Moon Base" is based on research by Haym Benaroya and Leonhard Bernold ("Engineering of lunar bases")
See also:
Filed under: Moon
February 7th, 2008 at 1:45 am
If you are really interested in a forward notion of more organizations and groups focused on lunar habitation and exploration then please see the PISCES project. It is a compilation project between Japan-U.S. Science, Technology & Space Applications Program (JUSTSAP), the Hawai’i State Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT), and the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. The latest conference was quite informative and there was a very large turnout from some folks at NASA/JPL and JAXA.
http://pisces.hilo.hawaii.edu
February 7th, 2008 at 1:51 am
impacts from all different sized particles and rocks would be of huge concern. i honestly can't imagine anything on the surface being safe long-term.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:47 am
[...] Building a Base on the Moon: Challenges and Hazards So, we want to go to the Moon. Why? Because the Moon is an ideal "staging post" for us to accumulate materials and manpower outside of the Earth's deep gravitational well. From the Moon we can send missions into deep space and ferry colonists to Mars. Tourists may also be interested in a short visit. Mining companies will no doubt want to set up camp there. The pursuit of science is also a major draw. For what ever reason, to maintain a presence on this small dusty satellite, we will need to settle there. Be it for the short-term or long-term, man will need to colonize the Moon. But where would we live? How could we survive on this hostile landscape? This is where structural engineers will step in, to design, and build, the most extreme habitats ever conceive. [...]
February 7th, 2008 at 3:36 am
.. underground seems best to me, an automated, unmanned, nuke powered, slow, mechanical mole could prepare a network of tunnels before man needs to set foot. for cooling, doesn't fine dust act like a fluid, couldn't that be an option - there seems to be plenty of it up there.
February 7th, 2008 at 3:49 am
[...] now having already covered giant sunspots, asteroids aiming for Mars, and the ilk, is running an article on moonbases. Who doesn't remember when this was how life was supposed to be by now…? Anyway, they [...]
February 7th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Start w air & temp. Is it efficient to extract breathable oxygen from regolith? Remember, it's CO2 that stimulates breathing, so add that. What about the horrendous diurnal temp extremes, even mercury has a 1100 degree daily swing. With so little gravity, it'll be difficult to maintain any sort of protective, breathable atmosphere. Mars would be too cold, a continuous energy drain to maintain, sim to lune. I'm for trying to restructure Venus's atmos. At least we have something to work with, & energy source. Les
February 7th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I think that the biggest challenge is maintaining support and funding from politicians to see the development through.
February 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Energy is the main thing. And finding the necessary ores for processing. I like the mole idea. Get the dust and the initial work out of the way before we even get there. Solar energy is the obvious answer for the moon. If the base were in a crater at the pole then it could avoid solar radiation and yet have solar panels just outside of the crater to collect energy. No one is suggesting terra-forming, Laszlo, all atmosphere would have to be interior. Working on Venus is not a twenty year project but a 2000 year project. We're too impatient for that.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
[...] Ian Building a Base on the Moon: Part 1 - Challenges and Hazards Universe Today [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 2:49 am
To build on the Moon, the main problem is not significant. You have to solve all problems before you start, or you do not start.
It may be better to terraform Mars before trying for a lunar outpost. Mars has no atmosphere either, is cold also, and has no water like the Moon does not. Yet you could solve all three of these problems simultaneously with importing a large comet core. We do not have the technology to do that, yet, but that could change in a couple of centuries. After impact, Mars gets heat, air, and water nearly instantly. The air will eventually bleed off into space, but that billion-year timescale does not affect the human race.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:01 am
JOHN — http://www.moonposter.ie (Moon News — http://www.moonposter.ie/news.htm)
Transport and habitat designs for use on the lunar surface are very much way behind. NASA's most favoured approach right now is to land as large a complete habitat as is possible on the surface (the Ares V's 8.7 metres-diameter shroud would be capable of large-ish habitats); followed later with other complete habitats that could then be joined. These would then form the foundations for building a much larger base, possibly at Shackleton Crater near the South Pole, and all done within the constraints of the necessary lunar architecture — power supplies, living quarters, rovers…etc.
Undoubtedly, their is a threat from exposed space — dangerous radiation and micrometeorites…etc., to this temporary arrangement — so an underground base is the likely option to reduce these risks. However, I think these plans would be very much down the long road direction.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:56 am
A thought occurred to me, after reading some of the above discussions regarding the 1/6 G environment, followed by others that talked habitat construction or dimensions:
Whatever they plan for the habitat, they need to apply lunar-based human factors, meaning they must throw away the Earth-based 1-G paradigm. For example: where interior ceilings come into play. I've seen video clips of people walking inside a base mock-up showing off airlocks, beds and such. Then I'd look over their heads and notice that these folks are all walking around with a ceiling that is aprx 12 inches above a typical head. At first blush that looked acceptable get around in. But once in lunar gravity, people will not be able to walk like an Earthling. I foresee dented ceilings and multiple cases of concussions — unless you either train the crew to walk with extreme slowness or with a bent-over posture (that'll do wonders to their spine), or issue everyone a hardhat… Or NASA (or whoever gets to design this) can make sure the habitat will have sufficient headroom to handle all the expected hopping.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
To BrianC:
Nice one Brian — those are neat observations and some lateral suggestions if ever I read them
Suggestion: Apply to NASA right now
John — http://www.moonposter.ie
February 11th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
[...] fun, though of course we must wait and see if it passes the rigours of peer review. And the idea of building a Moon base is exciting, and some seriously good astronomy could be done. But its all so expensive. If its done [...]
February 13th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
[...] within the protective shield of the magnetosphere. This system will be most useful for the future colonists of the Moon and any long-haul manned missions to Mars. It may only be an hours warning, but that hour could [...]
February 20th, 2008 at 1:12 am
[...] the first Moon base will be the biggest challenge mankind has ever embarked on. We can already speculate about the hazards, natural and manmade, associated with a human presence on the lunar surface. In response, we [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] the first Moon base will be the biggest challenge mankind has ever embarked on. We can already speculate about the hazards, natural and manmade, associated with a human presence on the lunar surface. In response, we [...]
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
So, what exactly are the disadvantages with nuclear power on the moon? What are the disadvantages of solar?
February 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
[...] Building a Base on the Moon: Part 1 - Challenges and Hazards [...]
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:32 am
[...] for the first habitats that will be built on the lunar landscape. In previous articles, we have examined the hazards associated with such an endeavour, we have looked at the structures available to us, we have even detailed a particular hangar-like [...]
March 24th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
[...] Building a Base on the Moon: Part 1 - Challenges and Hazards [...]
April 20th, 2008 at 10:41 am
[...] for the first habitats that will be built on the lunar landscape. In previous articles, we have examined the hazards associated with such an endeavour, we have looked at the structures available to us, we have even detailed a particular hangar-like [...]
May 7th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
[...] Here is an article I came across on the Universe Today websit considering the hazards and construction techniques for building a Moon base. [...]