Report: Solutions for Construction of a Lunar Base (Starship as base structure)

[Robotbeat]

If water is available on the Moon, a water wall on a vertical Lunar Starship might be easier. If there isn't any water mining going on, I doubt we will have a large permanent base.

John

Even with water mining, what are you even doing with the water mining that will save you more money than the base costs to operate?

[daveklingler]

When asked about laying down Starship on its side on the Moon, Elon tweeted "no". Why do people keep going back to this harebrained idea?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1298452372704894979

I think this answer is very ambiguous, and leaves plenty of room for interpretation.  It's entirely possible that Musk was answering the question, "Would starship be able to lay down..." without giving a lot of detail.  There's no doubt in my mind that a pressurized Starship could be laid down as it is right now, although I think there's a good chance it would collapse if it lost pressure. That will need to be taken into account during modifications, but it's not a showstopper.

Regarding radiation protection, pack the Starship in question with polyethylene Whipple walls, and lay them over the top half after you tip it over. 

[daveklingler]

If water is available on the Moon, a water wall on a vertical Lunar Starship might be easier. If there isn't any water mining going on, I doubt we will have a large permanent base.

John

Even with water mining, what are you even doing with the water mining that will save you more money than the base costs to operate?

Beyond the questionable assumption that water mining is only desirable to offset base costs, let's not get off-topic.

Edit: I'm having trouble imagining a water wall "on" a vertical Starship, so I might need someone to elucidate how that might work.  But I have no trouble imagining how a polyethylene shield might lay over the top half, with the bottom half protected by regolith.  It's entirely possible that the top half might also be capable of taking the weight of 4 or 5 meters of lunar soil, but that might require a little bit of study (or googling).

[daveklingler]

Regolith is about 1.5g/cm³, so about 1.5t/m³.  Assuming a relatively adequate 5 meters of depth, that's (7.5t/6)/m², or 2750 lbs/39.37² in²= 1.77 psi, which shouldn't affect the structural integrity of a Starship.

In other words, a 5m layer of regolith over the surface of a horizontal Starship should be well within its structural capability. My polyethylene shield is utterly unnecessary.  Just bring an electric bulldozer.  Or plenty of shovels. Maybe both.

I think that the university students have established that a Starship should be straightforward to tip over. Covering it with an adequately-thick layer of soil doesn't seem like much of an issue, and there are plenty of papers out there about installing an airlock on a pressurized tank without losing pressurization. What's left?

[daveklingler]

I think that the university students have established that a Starship should be straightforward to tip over. Covering it with an adequately-thick layer of soil doesn't seem like much of an issue, and there are plenty of papers out there about installing an airlock on a pressurized tank without losing pressurization. What's left?

How precisely did they "establish" that?  What they've asserted below [draining, pressurization, hinge, elevator cables, anchors, scissor lift, piled regolith] is complete and utter handwaving.  They didn't even bother to estimate of what it would take to install one of their anchors.

I don't think they should be required to reinvent mechanical and civil engineering.  Further, various ASCE members have been studying these problems with lunar soil simulants since at least the early eighties.

Klosky, J.L., Sture S., Ko, H.Y. and Barnes, F. (1998). “Helical anchors for combined
anchoring and soil testing in lunar operations.” Proc. Sixth Inter. Conf. Exp.
Engrg, Constr. Op. in Space, pp. 489-494.
McKay, D.S. (2009). “The lunar regolith.” Proc. 70th Anniversary of Hanyang Univ.
Inter. Dist. Scholars Symp. Seven Future Tech., June 11, Seoul, Korea.
Murray E.J. and Geddes J.D. (1987). “Uplift of anchor plates in sand.” J.
Geotechnical Engineering, Vol. 113 (3), pp. 202-215.
Zacny, K. (2009). “Lunar excavation and mining.” Proc.of the 2009 Dasan
Conference – Space Development and Exploration, Oct. 7, Ansan, Korea.
Chang Byung Chul, Bernold, Leonhard E. and Lee, Tai Sik (2010). Pro. 12th Biennial International Conference on Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments and the 4th NASA/ARO/ASCE Workshop on Granular Materials in Lunar and Martian Exploration. Experimental Study of Lunar Regolith Anchoring Forces. pp. 1418 - 1422.

What's left?  Give the task to 12 guys somewhere comparable and see if they can do it without the burden of pressure suits but using the kinds of equipment they would be required to use on the moon.

A demonstration is well beyond the scope of the study and well beyond the means of a handful of university students, not to mention well beyond any reasonable requirement.  The paper also proposed "MORACAS", purposed-designed robots, for the task, so it's not reasonable to ask a dozen guys to borrow a Starship and presumably take video. 

If you just want to see people manipulating Starships, you might look at the Boca Chica threads. 
If you want to watch civil engineers do their stuff, go watch a construction project. 

And if you want more enlightening reading in the same vein as this discussion, check out some of the thousands of papers from the ASCE since the first 1988 ASCE Space: Engineering, Construction and Operations in Space Conference in Albuquerque. Be sure to hit papers by TD Lin, David McKay and Larry Taylor, not to mention Leonhard Bernold's many papers on electric bulldozers for lunar development.

3.3 Horizontalization

Once the MOROCAS have deployed the external systems and drained the excess fuels, the load on the vehicle will be reduced significantly as it is being tilted. The pressure inside the vehicle will be high enough to maintain structural integrity but low enough to reduce the vehicle’s unnecessary mass. The horizontalization system will have several elements and concepts that are designed to reduce the load on the vehicle at different angles of tilt (Fig. 4). A hinge mechanism will be installed by the MOROCAS to prevent the vehicle from slipping and ensure the vehicle is being tilted in the appropriate direction. The cables of the elevators (seen in Fig. 2) coming down from the airlock will be disconnected from the platform and connected to anchors. These cables will carry most of the load on the vehicle at the earlier stages of the tilting procedure. A scissor lift mechanism will be deployed to transfer some of the loads to the ground on the last phase of the process. The vehicle will settle between two parallel ridges of piled regolith to prevent it from rolling and to support the horizontal structure.

Edit: Hey, you deleted your post.  Well...heck.

[AC in NC]

Edit: Hey, you deleted your post.  Well...heck.

Sorry about that.  Prematurely panicked.  I was reading their entire IAC paper (not impressed) and then realized I'd missed that they had another entire 100+ page paper.  Went back to review that and again, totally not impressed (not even a full page on horizontalization).  They say absolutely nothing meaningful about how any of this gets done.  Just a magical "invent a MOROCAS" and it all works (and works with a Single Drill Bit).

You've quoted the text that I deleted so the record is there.

No, they don't need to reinvent mechanical and civil engineering.  But when you don't cite anything meaningful as to engineering figures (as done a hundred times per week in posts here), the paper essentially boils down to a idea that could've been covered in a paragraph or two.  About all they've got is an Appendix Table on Cable Tension that they cite as requiring their Scissor Lift.

If you just want to see people manipulating Starships, you might look at the Boca Chica threads. 
If you want to watch civil engineers do their stuff, go watch a construction project. 

I want to see someone attempt a proposed task or two on earth using similar equipment as proposed.  That's not happening at Boca.  And were it to happen (let's do a thought exercise), I think we would readily see that a handful of guys and robots ain't accomplishing that task in anything like the proposed timeline even under benign earth conditions.

There's no doubt it could be done.  The entire exercise lacks a critical look at whether all the effort necessary to make it doable is worth it.  Despite the propaganda about a "novel look" at "reusability", the entire exercise reeks of old-space.  A New Space approach would be to conceptualize SS-enabled version of an Intermodal Container that could be readily unloaded, and Lego-ized into a base to be covered.

[DistantTemple]

There are 3 basic questions:

a) Has a horizontal cylinder advantages over a vertical one?
The answer is a clear yes. You can dig it in much easier to give radiation shielding, and you don't need lifts to enter.

Based on current scientific evidence concerning radiation risks for human missions on the lunar surface, I do not share this widespread impulse towards horizontality and "bury under rocks/regolith" approach to lunar surface base design.

We have very interesting results from the Germany's Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry (LND) onboard the Chang'e 4 lander, which measures simulated equivalent of hourly radiation exposure of human in EVA suit on lunar surface. See here for the published study: https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11214-020-00725-3?sharing_token=yM0G6YRGkeahID9_CL-LV_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY4KW2Ew4jw801Oflt5mNq37bh9zawC-7RQo2hqPn4gELrSWmoHiMETDQYVkdzno21dJkw4BY4ZYsMtodj7Wd3bvfoTEGYVJ1wYUOP6VLT6jZcCph1NK9Dq3i8hrt8Lrcsg%3D

So based on data from the LND instruments, we have calculated the 'equivalent dose' of an astronaut working on the lunar surface to be about 60 microsieverts of radiation per hour. Note that this number reflects the per hour exposure approximation while working outside with protection of the EVA suit only. This number is only about 5-8 times higher than the radiation exposure we get from a transatlantic flight. At 60 microsieverts per hour, an astronaut could spend almost two years, just with EVA suit level radiation protection, on the lunar surface before violating the current lifetime exposure limit. That's why I think the actual radiation risks for lunar surface base do not warrant horizontal and buried habitat architecture.

One of the authors did come to another conclusion:
from https://phys.org/news/2020-09-moon.html:

Astronauts would get 200 to 1,000 times more radiation on the moon than what we experience on Earth—or five to 10 times more than passengers on a trans-Atlantic airline flight, noted Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber of Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.

"The difference is, however, that we're not on such a flight for as long as astronauts would be when they're exploring the moon," Wimmer-Schweingruber said in an email.

Cancer is the primary risk.

"Humans are not really made for these radiation levels and should protect themselves when on the moon," he added.

I am not suggesting radiation isn't considered a risk, but our unserstanding of radiation risk must placed in a proper context: what is the nature and function of lunar base? How long should an astronaut expect to stay on the moon for a typical mission to the lunar base? Would the base be more similar to a scientific outpost with a small rotating crew or are we talking about a lunar colony with permanent inhabitants? I agree for permanent lunar colony we absolutely need buried/underground habitats for long term radiation shielding. But we have a long way to go, if ever, to build any permanently inhabitanted lunar colony.

 So for a more realistic lunar base, how long should we expect a typical stay be? Probably from a few months to up to a year maybe, possibly a little longer for exceptional cases. Like I said before, the radiation level would allow most astronauts to work on lunar surface for up to two years without significant health risks. That is more than sufficient in this realistic mission context. If we are letting astronauts to remain on the lunar base for longer than two years, I would be more worried about serious health risks from long exposure to low gravity environment than radiation. Again context matters.

Ideally space workers of the near future should not be using up their lifetime exposure limit too fast. To have to retire to Earth after a few years work, just when their skills and experience would qualify them to take leading roles on Mars missions etc.! This is not emergency work, its a career. Spending $ and effort on a bit of shielding is part of a commitment to the astronauts, their profession, and confidence in the coming expansion.

[livingjw]

If water is available on the Moon, a water wall on a vertical Lunar Starship might be easier. If there isn't any water mining going on, I doubt we will have a large permanent base.

John

Even with water mining, what are you even doing with the water mining that will save you more money than the base costs to operate?

Beyond the questionable assumption that water mining is only desirable to offset base costs, let's not get off-topic.

Edit: I'm having trouble imagining a water wall "on" a vertical Starship, so I might need someone to elucidate how that might work.  But I have no trouble imagining how a polyethylene shield might lay over the top half, with the bottom half protected by regolith.  It's entirely possible that the top half might also be capable of taking the weight of 4 or 5 meters of lunar soil, but that might require a little bit of study (or googling).

I was envisioning a polyethylene wall or curtain designed to contain water around the inside walls. Once landed it is filled with Lunar sourced water.

John

[Ionmars]

SS landing to base site

When deploying SS as a component of an initial moon base there will be engineering problems to solve along the way. One of these will be the transit of the SS from its landing site to the planned base location.

If we are just visiting the moon to show how it can be done, there is no need to transit anywhere; the landing site will be the base site for just one Starship. However, landing two or more ships to construct a base introduces more considerations. There will be a landing site and a base site separated by a safe distance because the plume of a Raptor during landing will discharge a significant amount of loose regolith and propel it at high speed in all directions. The safe distance between facilities will be determined by what measures are taken to protect personnel and equipment that are already landed. For example, equipment could be covered or buried in regolith before a second landing. Or a berm could be built around equipment to intercept debris flying horizontally. Or a berm could be built around the landing area for the same reason. Or equipment and the base itself could be located in a small crater so the sides of the crater could serve as a natural berm to intercept flying particles. Or the landing site could be located inside a small crate for the same reason. But before we jump on one of these solutions we should also consider relative elevations.

The SpaceX development site at Boca Chica may exemplify the elevation problem. When an SPMT carrying a Starship or propellant cylinder is moved from the production site onto State Highway 4 it is a smooth transition because SpX engineers had the foresight to build the surface of the production area to be the same elevation as the existing highway. The same is true at the intersection of Highway 4 with the launch area. Now consider how these smooth transitions could be accomplished on the Moon, between a landing site and a base site. This will involve building a smooth roadway between two areas with potential changes in elevation.

The design of the roadway between landing site and base will be affected by the choice of moving SS in vertical or horizontal position. Using SPMTs or equivalent to carry SS vertically will require a relatively smoother road surface with few or no abrupt bumps or dips and with modest slope. OTOH carrying SS horizontally will require clearing or avoiding boulders to a distance of 25m or more on both sides of the road.

The transit problem is one of many to address when planning a Moon base. Every decision affects every other decision about how to proceed. Both horizontal and vertical positioning affects everything and both approaches have advantages and disadvantages along the way. It will be helpful to plan the entire base-building process in some detail before committing to any one option.

[DanClemmensen]

SS landing to base site

When deploying SS as a component of an initial moon base there will be engineering problems to solve along the way. One of these will be the transit of the SS from its landing site to the planned base location.

If we are just visiting the moon to show how it can be done, there is no need to transit anywhere; the landing site will be the base site for just one Starship. However, landing two or more ships to construct a base introduces more considerations. There will be a landing site and a base site separated by a safe distance because the plume of a Raptor during landing will discharge a significant amount of loose regolith and propel it at high speed in all directions. The safe distance between facilities will be determined by what measures are taken to protect personnel and equipment that are already landed. For example, equipment could be covered or buried in regolith before a second landing. Or a berm could be built around equipment to intercept debris flying horizontally. Or a berm could be built around the landing area for the same reason. Or equipment and the base itself could be located in a small crater so the sides of the crater could serve as a natural berm to intercept flying particles. Or the landing site could be located inside a small crate for the same reason. But before we jump on one of these solutions we should also consider relative elevations.

The SpaceX development site at Boca Chica may exemplify the elevation problem. When an SPMT carrying a Starship or propellant cylinder is moved from the production site onto State Highway 4 it is a smooth transition because SpX engineers had the foresight to build the surface of the production area to be the same elevation as the existing highway. The same is true at the intersection of Highway 4 with the launch area. Now consider how these smooth transitions could be accomplished on the Moon, between a landing site and a base site. This will involve building a smooth roadway between two areas with potential changes in elevation.

The design of the roadway between landing site and base will be affected by the choice of moving SS in vertical or horizontal position. Using SPMTs or equivalent to carry SS vertically will require a relatively smoother road surface with few or no abrupt bumps or dips and with modest slope. OTOH carrying SS horizontally will require clearing or avoiding boulders to a distance of 25m or more on both sides of the road.

The transit problem is one of many to address when planning a Moon base. Every decision affects every other decision about how to proceed. Both horizontal and vertical positioning affects everything and both approaches have advantages and disadvantages along the way. It will be helpful to plan the entire base-building process in some detail before committing to any one option.

As proposed to NASA, the Starship HLS has hot-gas cosine thrusters mounted toward the bow be used instead of the Raptors when HLS is "within tens of meters" of the surface, specifically to avoid plume impingement by the Raptors. Elon made a later comment that these may not even be needed, but they are still in the design as proposed and accepted by NASA.

[KSHavre]

If water is available on the Moon, a water wall on a vertical Lunar Starship might be easier. If there isn't any water mining going on, I doubt we will have a large permanent base.

John

Even with water mining, what are you even doing with the water mining that will save you more money than the base costs to operate?

Beyond the questionable assumption that water mining is only desirable to offset base costs, let's not get off-topic.

Edit: I'm having trouble imagining a water wall "on" a vertical Starship, so I might need someone to elucidate how that might work.  But I have no trouble imagining how a polyethylene shield might lay over the top half, with the bottom half protected by regolith.  It's entirely possible that the top half might also be capable of taking the weight of 4 or 5 meters of lunar soil, but that might require a little bit of study (or googling).

I was envisioning a polyethylene wall or curtain designed to contain water around the inside walls. Once landed it is filled with Lunar sourced water.

John

I was with you John; much like a double hull ship that uses the gap between hulls for a storage tank. EDIT: {I am an ancestor of} Otto Sverdrup. He was the captain and then commander of a triple hull design Polar Expedition ship the Fram. I think they used the gap for storing fuel.

[Ionmars]

SS landing to base site

When deploying SS as a component of an initial moon base there will be engineering problems to solve along the way. One of these will be the transit of the SS from its landing site to the planned base location.

If we are just visiting the moon to show how it can be done, there is no need to transit anywhere; the landing site will be the base site for just one Starship. However, landing two or more ships to construct a base introduces more considerations. There will be a landing site and a base site separated by a safe distance because the plume of a Raptor during landing will discharge a significant amount of loose regolith and propel it at high speed in all directions. The safe distance between facilities will be determined by what measures are taken to protect personnel and equipment that are already landed. For example, equipment could be covered or buried in regolith before a second landing. Or a berm could be built around equipment to intercept debris flying horizontally. Or a berm could be built around the landing area for the same reason. Or equipment and the base itself could be located in a small crater so the sides of the crater could serve as a natural berm to intercept flying particles. Or the landing site could be located inside a small crate for the same reason. But before we jump on one of these solutions we should also consider relative elevations.

The SpaceX development site at Boca Chica may exemplify the elevation problem. When an SPMT carrying a Starship or propellant cylinder is moved from the production site onto State Highway 4 it is a smooth transition because SpX engineers had the foresight to build the surface of the production area to be the same elevation as the existing highway. The same is true at the intersection of Highway 4 with the launch area. Now consider how these smooth transitions could be accomplished on the Moon, between a landing site and a base site. This will involve building a smooth roadway between two areas with potential changes in elevation.

The design of the roadway between landing site and base will be affected by the choice of moving SS in vertical or horizontal position. Using SPMTs or equivalent to carry SS vertically will require a relatively smoother road surface with few or no abrupt bumps or dips and with modest slope. OTOH carrying SS horizontally will require clearing or avoiding boulders to a distance of 25m or more on both sides of the road.

The transit problem is one of many to address when planning a Moon base. Every decision affects every other decision about how to proceed. Both horizontal and vertical positioning affects everything and both approaches have advantages and disadvantages along the way. It will be helpful to plan the entire base-building process in some detail before committing to any one option.

As proposed to NASA, the Starship HLS has hot-gas cosine thrusters mounted toward the bow be used instead of the Raptors when HLS is "within tens of meters" of the surface, specifically to avoid plume impingement by the Raptors. Elon made a later comment that these may not even be needed, but they are still in the design as proposed and accepted by NASA.

Oh good point! 
I had forgotten about the change in landing technique, so maybe SS could land right beside the base and obviate the need for a road.

[Alberto-Girardi]

When asked about laying down Starship on its side on the Moon, Elon tweeted "no". Why do people keep going back to this harebrained idea?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1298452372704894979

I think this answer is very ambiguous, and leaves plenty of room for interpretation.  It's entirely possible that Musk was answering the question, "Would starship be able to lay down..." without giving a lot of detail.  There's no doubt in my mind that a pressurized Starship could be laid down as it is right now, although I think there's a good chance it would collapse if it lost pressure. That will need to be taken into account during modifications, but it's not a showstopper.

Regarding radiation protection, pack the Starship in question with polyethylene Whipple walls, and lay them over the top half after you tip it over.

I agree. It is possible that Musk understood that the original tweet meant that the SS would lay down itself withut other equipment. He could have answered that question that he found on his twitter homepage without thinking too much. Do you think that the future experience with catch arm might help with figuiring out if laying down a ship is possible?

[Oersted]

I wonder why old supertankers on Earth aren't repurposed as skyscrapers? Just stand them up on one end. I mean, it would be ten times easier than laying a spaceship on its side on another planet...

[DanClemmensen]

I wonder why old supertankers on Earth aren't repurposed as skyscrapers? Just stand them up on one end. I mean, it would be ten times easier than laying a spaceship on its side on another planet...

I know you are being faceteous, but there is a big difference. A Supertanker is not designed to support itself on its stern. A However, a Starship is designed to support itself against a lateral load of > 1 g, which it does during re-entry as it flies with the windward side facing the direction of motion.

[ThatOldJanxSpirit]

Three of my key principles are being violated here:

1) Keep it simple
2) Do as much work as you can on Earth where labour is orders of magnitude cheaper.
3) Proportionate consideration of risk.

Outfit your base on Earth in the gigantic fairing volume. If the stack is too wobbly to move, and/or the cargo lift is too much of a pain to use then get a big crane (you’ll probably want one anyway) and detach the nose section.

With regards to radiation exposure the expected unmitigated doses of around 0.5 Gy per year are high, but well within NASA career limits. Burying everything under 5m of regolith sounds good, but you’d need to do it all with remote controlled diggers to get an actual reduction in astronaut risk as EVA is a high risk activity. I’d expect to see localised shielding in high occupancy areas to control doses, rather than major civil engineering or spacecraft modifications as such measures are likely to be at best grossly disproportionate. 

[volker2020]

Three of my key principles are being violated here:

1) Keep it simple
2) Do as much work as you can on Earth where labour is orders of magnitude cheaper.
3) Proportionate consideration of risk.

Outfit your base on Earth in the gigantic fairing volume. If the stack is too wobbly to move, and/or the cargo lift is too much of a pain to use then get a big crane (you’ll probably want one anyway) and detach the nose section.

With regards to radiation exposure the expected unmitigated doses of around 0.5 Gy per year are high, but well within NASA career limits. Burying everything under 5m of regolith sounds good, but you’d need to do it all with remote controlled diggers to get an actual reduction in astronaut risk as EVA is a high risk activity. I’d expect to see localised shielding in high occupancy areas to control doses, rather than major civil engineering or spacecraft modifications as such measures are likely to be at best grossly disproportionate.

Keep it simple sounds good, than you have no access to that gigantic fairing volume on moon. If you want to move this station out, in one go, you need equally big doors. The method they want to use in orbit won't cut it on moon, because you need a way to stabilize the ship, when the center of gravity changes, or remove the complete nose, even when you have this very large crane (which by itself would be quite a complex piece of hardware).
2 winches sound rather straight forward compared to this.

ps. 80cm of regolith should do the trick, according to the paper referenced above.
pps. The horizontal station that is within the nose, could be finished on earth. (and would by definition be equally big). The part that might become harder, is using the tank area as additional storage. But in a direct comparison, that should be regarded an extra option.

[ThatOldJanxSpirit]

Three of my key principles are being violated here:

1) Keep it simple
2) Do as much work as you can on Earth where labour is orders of magnitude cheaper.
3) Proportionate consideration of risk.

Outfit your base on Earth in the gigantic fairing volume. If the stack is too wobbly to move, and/or the cargo lift is too much of a pain to use then get a big crane (you’ll probably want one anyway) and detach the nose section.

With regards to radiation exposure the expected unmitigated doses of around 0.5 Gy per year are high, but well within NASA career limits. Burying everything under 5m of regolith sounds good, but you’d need to do it all with remote controlled diggers to get an actual reduction in astronaut risk as EVA is a high risk activity. I’d expect to see localised shielding in high occupancy areas to control doses, rather than major civil engineering or spacecraft modifications as such measures are likely to be at best grossly disproportionate.

Keep it simple sounds good, than you have no access to that gigantic fairing volume on moon. If you want to move this station out, in one go, you need equally big doors. The method they want to use in orbit won't cut it on moon, because you need a way to stabilize the ship, when the center of gravity changes, or remove the complete nose, even when you have this very large crane (which by itself would be quite a complex piece of hardware).
2 winches sound rather straight forward compared to this.

ps. 80cm of regolith should do the trick, according to the paper referenced above.
pps. The horizontal station that is within the nose, could be finished on earth. (and would by definition be equally big). The part that might become harder, is using the tank area as additional storage. But in a direct comparison, that should be regarded an extra option.

No need to extract the habitat through doors; the fairing is the habitat.

There is nothing straightforward about conducting a controlled topple of a gigantic steel cylinder using winches and with workers in spacesuits. A crane is significantly simpler, and can be used for a range of other lifting operations.

[sebk]

Using a vertical Starship as a base has big advantages. You have your solar panels up so it's actually feasible to have them permanently lit (there are quite a few spots around the rim of Shackleton Crater which are within couple dozens of meters of permanently lit). As @livingjw said, use water to create shield. Just fill 50cm thick circumferential "pocket" with water and together with the walls, solar panels etc would form about 70g/cm^2 of shielding which is decent.

You don't even have to mine the water. Just land it in visiting ships. The shield would be 200t, so for example filling up the resupply ships to the to nominal 100t would solve the issue in a few resupply flights (I'm certain we won't be shipping exactly 100t of supplies on every flight, to the contrary I'd expect most supply flights to deliver less than half of that. So instead of letting the capacity unused, bring water).

Especially that the Starship-Base is useful even without filling the walls, just that radiation doses are higher and would limit stays to 2 years of a career. After the filling it could be extended multifold, as GCRs would be about halved compared to outside moon surface environment while solar particles would be filtered to negligible levels.

[Ionmars]

A lightbulb has turned on in my head. Employing Starship in horizontal position on another planet is a bad idea for a very good but non-engineering reason: It has become symbolic.

Most of us that follow SS development believe that SS will eventually be successful. It will land people on Mars; It will begin colonization of Mars: it will make possible our exploration of Europa, Titan, Eceladus, and further into the Solar  System and beyond.

In a nutshell:
Starship has become the symbol for Mankind’s entry into the Galaxy.

For this reason:
Starship, I salute thee. I shall never again suggest that you should lie supine on any planet.