The European Space Agency and Hassell Studio design for a 144 person moonbase has dozens of inflatable modules that will be covered by regolith. The larger inflatable modules are about 22 feet (7 meters wide), ~60 feet long (~18 meters) and up to 14 feet (4 meters tall at the tallest). This is based upon the rendering of the inside of one of the larger habitat modules. There would hundreds modules to make up the smaller hallway sections.
They will use a lot of 3D printing and many vertical solar panels.
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Any base on the moon or Mars is going to be basically a spaceship. Completely pressurized. If you’re already building spaceships then why not just keep them in orbit and just operate robots on the surface in real time. At least there you can spin them to create some semblance of gravity and it’s a hell of a lot easier to get back to Earth if you need to. The lunar module had over 23,000 lb of propellant or about 11,500 lb per person to get down surface and back up to orbit. So what’s the going rate for every pound of anything lifted to a lunar transfer orbit.? I think a lunar base sounds sexy but incredibly expensive. In 2020 China the sample return mission to the Moon and brought back about 5 lb of rock. Over 270 people have visited the international space station and returned to Earth but we’ve only managed to get 5 lb of rock off the moon in the last 40 years. That tells you just how expensive and hard getting anything to the surface and back off again really is
This is not on topic. But is associated with living/working on the moon long term. Why not have weighted clothing that approximates your earth weight on the moon. You would move with the same motion/predictability as on Earth. Also make it easier when you came back, if you wanted to.
I think it would help but most of the studies say more would need to be done. They have specific exercises for microgravity to reduce the impact.
The 16% moon gravity and 40% Mars gravity could use constant movement of more weight and resistance.
There can also be sleeping in a vehicles, sleeper car with centrifugal forces of 1g or 1.05 Gs. It would be a circular track.
There is one thing I really like about this design: a large space for humans to mingle.
Humans are social animals. Small, claustrophobic spaces are effecient, but terrible for mental well-being. Larger spaces are great for the human psyche. I hope the mental well-being of colonists will be kept in mind when designing the structures, even if it costs more.
Hmmm. What happens in case of a loss of pressure? Collapse on people inside? Needs hard internal support structure with emergency pressurized shelter.
Their should be physical air locks between major section, to isolate them Incase of fire or loss of pressure. I would hope everyone would be required to wear comm picture id device, so computer knows where everyone is. A simple face mask, air supply fanny pack should be adequate so people could breath until rescued. I assume that everyone would go through initial orientation and periodic drills that simulate emergency procedures.
photoelectric solar is not the best approach for a fixed colony. Where weight does not matter, thermal solar is a natural. Concentrated solar on moon can heat large volume of regolith, keeping it hot through the night just a matter of reflective covering at night. Many places on moon naturally have hot spots next to very cold shadowed areas, no atmosphere to lose heat to by convection. Instead of having no power at night, that would be the time of max power (temperature difference between thermal store and ambient). Thermal storage is best on earth as well, but on earth insulating is an issue.
You can at one location have a hole bored in the regolith, and take advantage of the non-diffuse sunlight to direct a lot of concentrated sunlight down it the whole time the Sun is over the horizon.
Nearby you can equally take advantage of the completely non-diffuse nature of sunlight on the Moon by shadowing a large area, and perhaps installing heat pipes, so that it radiatively cools towards cryogenic temperatures even during the lunar day.
Between you run a high efficiency heat engine. It’s output will scarcely vary given how large the heat reservoirs will be. Also useful for temperature regulation of a colony.
This is actually the way to go, except that they’re not showing the internal stays necessary to make the habitat space non-round. From a volumetric efficiency standpoint, spherical or cylindrical sections are best, but humans fit better into volumes with flat floors and ceilings, which can be approximated by balloons with internal stays. Think “air mattress”.
Because the air pressure we need is so high compared to the weight of regolith in lunar gravity, these are structures whose shape is totally dominated by internal pressure, even if you do cover them with a few meters of dirt for protection.
Using high strength fibers, with conservative safety margins, the weight of the balloon is actually comparable to the weight of the air it will contain. You probably want to actually use regolith in velcro covered “sand bags” for at least some of the cover, it would help stabilize it, and they can be stacked in self-supporting vaults to allow entry spaces where airlocks can be sheltered, and equipment that stays in vacuum sheltered from temperature extremes.
This is basically the scheme I came up with for a Mars colony, by the way, with the thought that the fabric could be manufactured on site eventually from CO2 and water; Spectra is a very high performance fiber that’s just carbon and hydrogen.
Such balloons can be manufactured with most internal partitions already in place. Since balloons are going to have a certain curve to them inherently, flat floors would probably have to be either tightly stretched fabric, or internal backfill with graded regolith. I’d go with the former, it allows convenient space for cable runs and other utilities.
Lots of problems with this design. Not an efficient use of volume or energy efficiency.