A surface HAB that can be expanded with multiple airlocks and branching into other HAB space. But maybe, having a small, basic HAB as a starting point is the right way to go.
One thing that was wondering about is windows. It seems to me that you should have a few windows on the habitat. I suppose that you could have digital windows but I don't think that is the same as a real windows.
And the hab is still on top of the engine section?
[the question was about the timeline for a permanent base on the Moon] The other part is, you know, the permanence, that’s what we are trying: when we talk about habitations and you heard Randy talk about the difficulty at the South Pole [of the Moon] and you have heard many folks talk about the lighting and just how hard it is. We have to decide if putting one big habitat down is that the right thing to do because can we get back to it the next year if we have a 2 weeks launch delay where we wanted to land to get to that habitat, the lighting may not allows us to do it. So maybe we land somewhere else and drive the pressurized rover to it. That’s what the architecture that is going to come out of the objectives that we talked about is really going to decide: what is the holistic solution of how much we invest in a single habitat versus, maybe, a lot of different small campers, bigger than the tent that Randy talked about [when camping outdoors], there is some small campers around as well. Those are the trades that we are going through right now.
Free on what lunar sustainability means: "We're going to be sustainable this time. That doesn't mean we're saying 365 days a year, it means we're going to be able to stay for 30 days, and help enable others to stay there while we're not there."
My pessimism leads me to believe that this avenue of "campers" is being explored so that they are single use and lend themselves to shorter stays on the surface, rather than a permanent presence.
Quote from: shintoo on 08/28/2022 04:23 amMy pessimism leads me to believe that this avenue of "campers" is being explored so that they are single use and lend themselves to shorter stays on the surface, rather than a permanent presence.I don't think that campers are single use. He was making an analogy with campers at an outdoors camping site which are usually attached to the back of a truck. I think that he just meant mobile habitation modules (hopefully that can be attached to each other). The foundation surface habitat is essentially a habitat on top of a lander and there is supposed to be only one. It is currently scheduled for Artemis VIII or IX (I am assuming that the smaller camper-type habitats would be ready before that):https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/we-got-a-leaked-look-at-nasas-future-moon-missions-and-likely-delays/See also page 7:https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy23_nasa_budget_request_summary.pdf
[W]hat is the holistic solution of how much we invest in a single habitat versus, maybe, a lot of different small campers [...]
My pessimism leads me to believe that this avenue of "campers" is being explored so that they are single use and lend themselves to shorter stays on the surface, rather than a permanent presence.With an HLS so big, I don't see the point of having another base to operate out of if that base is meant to be small.Just take the *** LTV or PR to the permanent base and get on with it!QuoteFree on what lunar sustainability means: "We're going to be sustainable this time. That doesn't mean we're saying 365 days a year, it means we're going to be able to stay for 30 days, and help enable others to stay there while we're not there."https://mobile.twitter.com/lorengrush/status/1563600479904755712
I'm very troubled at the apparent direction Artemis may be taking. Permanent base implies investing in structures and infrastructure that can be reused in the future, hopefully for many years. Think ISS. It's the skeleton that sustainability is built around."Campers" instead of a base is the wrong direction, and will not contribute much (anything?) to sustainability.
[...] or somehow drag along a large long-term base to every research location of interest (dumb as dirt).
The first step in sustaining a frontier presence is sustainable transportation. Without frequent, regular access, you’re forever making tradeoffs that you wouldn’t otherwise make. In this case, NASA is trying to solve the logistical contradiction between supporting a long-term station vice the need to conduct research at multiple locations of interest. The most straightforward way to do this is to simply mount multiple missions, including some to demonstrate long-term operations/utilization and some to hit priority research sites. With Artemis crew transport tied to one Orion/SLS every year or two, the program lacks the mission frequency necessary to do both over a reasonable time horizon. So the program has to figure out a suboptimal kludge where somehow there’s one long-term location that can satisfy multiple research interests well (unlikely, see ISS) or somehow drag along a large long-term base to every research location of interest (dumb as dirt). Until and unless Free is willing to free himself (pun intended) of the Orion/SLS effort he previously led (unlikely) by securing additional/alternate means of lunar crew transport, the program will continue to tie itself in knots trying to create a post-Apollo capability out of what is a sub-Apollo transport.
This is not that hard, is it? A base built in Starship would be able to hop from place to place. the resupply ship would need to be able to transfer propellant to it.Still dumb as dirt. Better to land one such base per location and leave it there.
Do we know what Orion's lifetime would be if it is docked to Gateway?
While retaining SLS/Orion as the "only" way to get us nominally from Earth to NRHO (then HLS to the surface), do you think it would be politically possible to have the Dragon/HLS LEO docking architecture be reserved for only rescue missions?
Quote from: DanClemmensen on 08/28/2022 04:49 pmThis is not that hard, is it? A base built in Starship would be able to hop from place to place. the resupply ship would need to be able to transfer propellant to it.Still dumb as dirt. Better to land one such base per location and leave it there.By dragging, I meant launching/lugging a heavy, long-term camper from Earth on missions that don’t need it, not literally dragging a hab across the lunar surface. I should have picked a better verb.The lunar hopper concept has been around for decades in one form or another. I dunno for sure, but the expense of developing and supplying one probably doesn’t make sense unless you’re mounting a lot of missions, which Artemis won’t be as long as the program is tied to Orion/SLS. Maybe if the engineering allows that changes with Starship economics, but Artemis still won’t have the crew throughput to take advantage. Just a huge impedance matching problem for which there is no solution other than supplement/replace Orion/SLS for lunar crew transport.For polar research programs, we have/had permanent bases, temporary stations, excursions from both, and excursions without either. What we have not done is run a polar research program with only four crew visiting the Arctic or Antarctic for a couple or few weeks once every year or two for a couple decades or more on end. Artemis doesn’t have to deploy thousands like we do to the polar regions every year. But it does need to show increasing numbers of researchers being deployed to the Moon over a decade or two like the annual chart for the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic program does:https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1997/antpanel/graphics/ex34.gifA similar chart for current Artemis plans would be flat thru the mid-2030s.Metrics like that should be driving decision making about Artemis capabilities. Instead, Free is having arguments with himself about the the least suboptimal way to still deploy less than a handful of astronauts for a few weeks a decade and a half from now. Shortsighted and dumb, dumb, dumb…
