In Moon Camp Explorers each team’s mission is to 3D design a complete Moon Camp using Tinkercad. They also have to explain how they will use local resources, protect astronauts from the dangers of space and describe the living and working facilities in their Moon Camp.
European school the hague Den Haag-Zuid-Holland Netherlands 14 0 / 0 English
Our Moon Base project is designed to be a highly efficient, habitable base for astronauts and scientists all over the world. It will function like the International Space Station (ISS), in the sense that space missions from all countries are accepted on board. The Moon Base, which we will call Urbs Stellarum, will be a completely functioning settlement that will function as a research & development, trade, and exploration hub. The main structures found on the Urbs Stellarum will be domes, solar panels, docks, storage containers (which also includes the waste containers) and airlocked corridors. The domes will provide living space with all necessary features for a human: beds, bathrooms, showers, a canteen, a gym, a medical section and of course a research laboratory. A bio-dome will provide the right conditions for agricultural growth of food, while ration shipments can arrive by cargo shuttle. Vast solar panel fields will provide all the electricity necessary for the operation of the base, and a lunar ice crystal refinery will provide appropriate amounts of water. An observatory equipped with cutting-edge radar systems, an ELT (extremely large telescope). There is also a large communications tower near the main dome. A rocket launch pad is also present on site, giving the Moon Base the capability of sending its own missions into space. Lunar Rovers will be present on the base to provide easy means of exploration and transportation for the astronauts.
We want to build a moon camp for science and research purposes. We want to see if it is possible to live on the moon and also launch missions to places like mars to expand our civilization. This will also push us to research and create new technologies and create safer and more efficient machines that can help us go to the moon (or even other planets). However our moon camp will not be used as a tourist destination for at least several decades.
Close to the lunar poles
Our reasoning behind this decision is rather simple, being the water availability. As the moon has large amounts of lunar water locked in crystal form near its poles, settling the base close to it would minimize transportation costs and make the logistics of running the base a whole lot easier.
The initial construction phase consists of a fleet of space shuttles deploying basic living structures with water and food rations for the worker, and the manpower to construct them. The second phase will involve another fleet deploying the materials for the water refinery and solar panels. The third phase will involve an armada of spacecraft to land more workers, crew, and materials for the rest of the modules to be constructed and to remove the temporary structures when finished. The main materials used will be steel, regolith, iron alloy, lead, and boron. Meanwhile, all necessary resupply sorties will be flown.
For protection against radiation, our domes will be reinforced with iron alloy, lead, and boron. All these materials listed above are very efficient against radiation. For reference, the Chernobyl Disaster was combatted in large part by boron and sand. When it comes to meteorite protection, we will deploy several ASRAD-HELLAS anti-air batteries on the surface around the base’s key infrastructure paired with advanced radar systems. Some ASRAD-HELLAS systems can be mounted on our rovers, to give them greater range and mobility. These systems are simple, meaning that minimal training is needed for the operators, erasing the need for specialized crewmates.
Since the base will be constructed next to lunar poles, a water refinery will be set up as part of the camp and have a direct pipeline for distribution to the entire project. If anything goes wrong, resupply sorties will be flown in until the repair is made.
A bio-dome that will function very similar to a greenhouse is planned to provide all the crops needed for very basic forms of food, such as corn, wheat, grain, and vegetables. For items such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, oils and chocolate, shipments will need to land to deliver them to the base as they cannot be grown on the moon itself.
A vast field of solar panels connected to the base’s power grid will provide all electricity necessary. This will be an efficient way to get electricity, because as we all know the moon gets its light from the sun, and so the solar panels will be able to convert that into electricity for the base.
To provide oxygen to our astronauts, we will use zeolite filters in all our facilities. These are the exact same type of filters used aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Our training programme will include several tests and exercises to prepare our astronauts for the missions on the moon.
First of all, they will need to fly to the moon and therefore will need 0 gravity training which will include flying in a 0G plane. They will also need to be able to work in low gravity situations and so they will train in a room connected to a centrifuge which should simulate the moon’s gravity on earth.
They will then learn how to put on/off a spacesuit, drive the rovers, fly the space shuttles and conduct experiments.
Our astronauts will also have to exercise regularly on earth as well as on the moon to stay fit and healthy.
The astronauts will have to go through several simulations which will test their capabilities when being under pressure. We will simulate situation that may occur like fire in the space shuttle, an unexpected asteroid hitting the main dome with oxygen escaping.
Lastly, the astronauts have to understand that they will not be able to talk face to face to anyone but their colleagues. The astronauts that will be recruited are the ones who won’t fear solitude during the multi-year moon mission.
