Author Topic: Surface Habitats on the Moon  (Read 42556 times)

Offline yg1968

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #20 on: 02/17/2022 02:17 am »
Here is a FISO presentation on the Artemis Base Camp: "An Early Vision for the Artemis Base Camp" Jeff George, NASA JSC and Bret Drake, Aerospace Corp., April 14, 2021:

http://fiso.spiritastro.net/telecon19-21/George-Drake_4-14-21/

I just listened to this presentation. It's very interesting. At 35m of the presentation, it was mentioned that the foundation surface habitat is considered the first phase which would occur in the early 2030s. A second phase later on (no timeline was given) would involve having several modular habitats that are attached to each other. But the foundation surface habitat is a stand alone module.

At one hour of the presentation (the last slide), it was mentioned that there would only be one foundation surface habitat, one pressurized rover (which might be provided by Japan) and one unpressurized lunar terrain vehicle. One team of two astronauts would stay and use the surface habitat and would do biological science there. The other team of two astronauts would use the pressurized rover and perhaps the lunar terrain vehicle to explore various locations on the Moon. It was also mentioned that the pressurized rover and the lunar terrain vehicle can be operated remotely from the surface habitat, the Gateway or Earth.
« Last Edit: 08/24/2022 12:01 am by yg1968 »

Offline pochimax

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #21 on: 02/17/2022 06:59 am »
There are a lot of chances this will be an international module, mostly with european contribution (as Japan is supposed to make the pressurized rover as its contribution to a lunar base camp). Italy is very interested in this and might pull the rest of ESA members to do it.

Offline DreamyPickle

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #22 on: 02/17/2022 08:09 am »
Many of the links posted higher in this thread are not now but digging around I found something interesting called the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium. That page contains links to a whole bunch of ISRU-related presentations and other projects for make use of a lunar surface presence.

Offline JayWee

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #23 on: 02/17/2022 06:58 pm »
SpaceX director Nicholas Cummings:
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1494394283188797443
Quote from: Nicholas Cummings
"The thing I'm most excited about" with NASA's Artemis "is all of the surface elements," since "Starship is fundamentally designed to transport very, very large amounts of cargo."
SpaceX is "excited to integrate things like habitats and rovers and supplies" with Starship to make a "rich ecosystem of technologies" for an "incredible Moon base."

I can say Moon base, right? We're at a space conference.

Thinking about a Moon base analogous to Everest base camp, "staffed by hundreds or thousands of scientists and explorers.
« Last Edit: 02/17/2022 06:59 pm by JayWee »

Offline yg1968

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #24 on: 02/18/2022 02:19 am »
There are a lot of chances this will be an international module, mostly with european contribution (as Japan is supposed to make the pressurized rover as its contribution to a lunar base camp). Italy is very interested in this and might pull the rest of ESA members to do it.

I suppose that you need a lander to land the habitat on the Moon. Would ESA use the European Large Logistics Lander for this?

I found this article on Italy's involvement with lunar habitats:
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/02/13/italy-takes-first-steps-towards-the-moon/

I also found this tweet by Eric Berger:

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1309517937200574464
« Last Edit: 02/18/2022 02:38 am by yg1968 »

Offline DreamyPickle

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #25 on: 02/18/2022 05:49 am »
If each habitat lands by itself won't this requires some sort of minimum distance between the habitats in order to avoid damage from dust plumes? This would be especially bad for habitats with integrated foldable solar panels.

Moving habitats after landing would require heavy equipment on the lunar surface. Connecting them like ISS modules would be even harder.

This issue tilts the scale in favor of starting with a single large starship-based habitat, maybe even in a "wet workshop" configuration.

There are other solutions:

* Moving solar panels to a dedicated solar farm
* Clearing the landing pads from dust and debris (how?)
* Place landing engines at the top of the habitat so plume interacts less with regolith

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #26 on: 02/18/2022 06:35 am »
If each habitat lands by itself won't this requires some sort of minimum distance between the habitats in order to avoid damage from dust plumes? This would be especially bad for habitats with integrated foldable solar panels.

Moving habitats after landing would require heavy equipment on the lunar surface. Connecting them like ISS modules would be even harder.

Moving heavy loads does not require heavy equipment. Humans have been doing this for millennia (pyramids, Stonehenge, Easter Island...). A hand-operated ratcheting winch would be able to drag a Starship HLS across the surface in .16 g if the pads on the legs are designed for it. A small motorized winch would be more practical.

Yes, mating the sections would be difficult if you use ISS-type mating/docking systems, but not too difficult if a less rigid structure is used.

Offline kevinof

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #27 on: 02/18/2022 07:25 am »
If each habitat lands by itself won't this requires some sort of minimum distance between the habitats in order to avoid damage from dust plumes? This would be especially bad for habitats with integrated foldable solar panels.

Moving habitats after landing would require heavy equipment on the lunar surface. Connecting them like ISS modules would be even harder.

This issue tilts the scale in favor of starting with a single large starship-based habitat, maybe even in a "wet workshop" configuration.

There are other solutions:

* Moving solar panels to a dedicated solar farm
* Clearing the landing pads from dust and debris (how?)
* Place landing engines at the top of the habitat so plume interacts less with regolith
Maybe it just comes down to cost (in a time of ever decreasing budgets)? If NASA go to SpaceX in say 5 years and ask how much would another say 2 HLS landers cost to launch and park permanently on the moon vs the cost of a bespoke design that also needs to be launched and delivered to the moon surface.

Could be a lot cheaper to buy and park a HLS SS  vs a custom hab.

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #28 on: 02/18/2022 08:56 am »
There are a lot of chances this will be an international module, mostly with european contribution (as Japan is supposed to make the pressurized rover as its contribution to a lunar base camp). Italy is very interested in this and might pull the rest of ESA members to do it.

I suppose that you need a lander to land the habitat on the Moon. Would ESA use the European Large Logistics Lander for this?
<snip>

According to the ESA webpage for the Heracles lander. It is designed to deliver about 1500 kg of cargo to the Lunar surface. So not enough payload mass capacity for anything bigger than an emergency shelter for a few people.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #29 on: 02/18/2022 01:27 pm »
"NASA is developing the next generation of habitation systems for sustained human access to deep space."

Left to the imagination is which "generation" of habitats this one will replace.  If, as is argued here so often, a lunar hab will have very little that is pertinent to a martian hab, how can it be asserted that a lunar hab will inform the design of a deep space hab?
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #30 on: 02/18/2022 04:17 pm »
If each habitat lands by itself won't this requires some sort of minimum distance between the habitats in order to avoid damage from dust plumes? This would be especially bad for habitats with integrated foldable solar panels.

Moving habitats after landing would require heavy equipment on the lunar surface. Connecting them like ISS modules would be even harder.

This issue tilts the scale in favor of starting with a single large starship-based habitat, maybe even in a "wet workshop" configuration.

There are other solutions:

* Moving solar panels to a dedicated solar farm
* Clearing the landing pads from dust and debris (how?)
* Place landing engines at the top of the habitat so plume interacts less with regolith
Maybe it just comes down to cost (in a time of ever decreasing budgets)? If NASA go to SpaceX in say 5 years and ask how much would another say 2 HLS landers cost to launch and park permanently on the moon vs the cost of a bespoke design that also needs to be launched and delivered to the moon surface.

Could be a lot cheaper to buy and park a HLS SS  vs a custom hab.

Almost certainly a lot cheaper unless the alternative launches on a reusable superheavy booster.

If the NASA contractual requirements for a hab include functionality that is not part of Starship HLS or the evolved version SpaceX will almost certainly bid for LETS, then it will still be a lot cheaper to build a custom Starship HAB version. The one huge caveat: if NASA requires hab to have a surface-level access hatch, something will need to change.

And the other huge caveat: Starship in general (reusable SH, reusable SS, tankers, depot) and the HLS in particular must actually work.

Offline pochimax

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #31 on: 02/18/2022 04:20 pm »
There are a lot of chances this will be an international module, mostly with european contribution (as Japan is supposed to make the pressurized rover as its contribution to a lunar base camp). Italy is very interested in this and might pull the rest of ESA members to do it.

I suppose that you need a lander to land the habitat on the Moon. Would ESA use the European Large Logistics Lander for this?

I Don' t expect so much. Maybe Europe contributing with some kind of pressurized volume and some components and landing it would be NASA's contribution. Not a whole ESA's surface habitat. Anyway it was an speculation, at this point.

Offline shintoo

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #32 on: 02/18/2022 04:30 pm »
I suppose that you need a lander to land the habitat on the Moon. Would ESA use the European Large Logistics Lander for this?

I found this article on Italy's involvement with lunar habitats:
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2021/02/13/italy-takes-first-steps-towards-the-moon/

I imagine that they would be a customer of a large US lander in this case, possibly one developed for LETS. I get the impression from the article that their surface hab study is a study of evolving the Dynetics' pressurized vessel into a surface hab:

Quote
The feasibility study has a duration of 10 months and must lead to the design of a multipurpose, flexible and evolvable pressurized structure, able to adapt to a wide range of applications. The first of these is the crew cabin of the NASA Human Landing System (HLS), which is also being designed by a team led by the US company Dynetics, for which Thales Alenia Space Italia is also involved.
Emphasis mine.

Their use of the term "multi-purpose module" etc leads me to think they are referring to a module design that can be implemented as a lander or surface hab.

So they likely are designing a common architecture to be used with both Dynetics' lander and as a surface hab, presumably delivered via Dynetics' cargo lander (basically, just swapping the HLS pressure vessel with the surface hab pressure vessel). Though I am certain that what they learn from their feasibility study can be applied to surface habs that aren't necessarily delivered via Dynetics.
« Last Edit: 02/18/2022 04:32 pm by shintoo »

Offline yg1968

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #33 on: 02/18/2022 06:27 pm »
SpaceX director Nicholas Cummings:
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1494394283188797443
Quote from: Nicholas Cummings
"The thing I'm most excited about" with NASA's Artemis "is all of the surface elements," since "Starship is fundamentally designed to transport very, very large amounts of cargo."
SpaceX is "excited to integrate things like habitats and rovers and supplies" with Starship to make a "rich ecosystem of technologies" for an "incredible Moon base."

I can say Moon base, right? We're at a space conference.

Thinking about a Moon base analogous to Everest base camp, "staffed by hundreds or thousands of scientists and explorers.

I was thinking that it would be easier to use Starship to deliver a modular design to the lunar surface but I am not sure how that would work. The advantage of a modular design is that you can have several countries providing a module as is the case for Gateway. I get the impression that LETS needs to be awarded before any definite plans can be made on the lunar surface habitat(s).
« Last Edit: 02/18/2022 06:32 pm by yg1968 »

Offline JayWee

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #34 on: 02/18/2022 06:32 pm »
It also hinted at a cargo variant of Lunar Starship (I guess with a crane)

Offline yg1968

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #35 on: 02/18/2022 06:35 pm »
Perhaps, something like this (SpaceX's image):
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/spacex-lunar-lander-concept

« Last Edit: 02/18/2022 06:38 pm by yg1968 »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #36 on: 02/18/2022 07:29 pm »
 
I was thinking that it would be easier to use Starship to deliver a modular design to the lunar surface but I am not sure how that would work.

Modular is the way to go for the habs.  I had sketched out a hexagonal module which could provide a platform to build on.  Certainly the first units would be relatively unique, but the sooner a modular vocabulary could be devised, the sooner the base could expect to grow.
« Last Edit: 02/18/2022 07:29 pm by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline su27k

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #37 on: 02/20/2022 04:15 am »
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/33-dennis-wingo-the-strategic-importance-of-the-moon/id1559865448?i=1000550858679

Quote
In this episode, Senior Fellow in Defense Studies Peter Garretson interviews Dennis Wingo, CEO of SkyCorp, Inc. and author of Moonrush. They discuss the strategic rationale for space development and industrialization, the strategic importance of the Moon, the grand strategy consequences of failure, and the proper division of labor between government and the private sector. Dennis lays out a vision for Lunar development, and concrete policy steps to mobilize private capital and accelerate Lunar industrial development.

He covered a lot of the lunar base topics we previous discussed in this thread

Offline yg1968

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Re: Foundation Surface Habitats on the Moon
« Reply #38 on: 03/06/2022 09:18 pm »
Based on the information below, it seems that it is an HLS provider that will deliver the foundation surface habitat to the Moon:

In the DRMs [for the LETS RFI], two cargo missions have been added, one for the foundation surface habitat and another one for the pressurized rover:

Quote from: pages 9 and 10 of the DRMs document
CARGO DESIGN REFERENCE MISSION 001 (CL-CDRM-001)

CDRM-001 is a large cargo delivery mission to the lunar South Pole region. The cargo lander will deliver the Foundation Surface Habitat (FSH) to the Artemis Base Camp (ABC).

CARGO DESIGN REFERENCE MISSION 00[2] (CL-CDRM-002)

CDRM-002 is a large cargo delivery mission to the lunar South Pole region. The cargo lander will deliver the Pressurized Rover (PR) near the Artemis Base Camp (ABC).
« Last Edit: 03/07/2022 01:00 pm by yg1968 »

Offline yg1968

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« Last Edit: 07/18/2022 03:04 pm by yg1968 »

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