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.
IES Clara Campoamor Rodriguez ZARAGOZA-ZARAGOZA Spain 14 0 / 0 English
Our lunar camp is called “lunatics”, which means ‘Lunaticos’ in Latin. It Refers to the word ‘Luna’ which means Moon in Spanish, our language.
Our camp will be located in the Shackleton crater and it has been designed for 4 astronauts (the pilot and astronomer, a biochemist, an engineer and a doctor).
Also, Our camp is divided into different sections:
1.- The room where the astronauts sleep and relax.
2.- The greenhouse where vegetables will grow.
3.- The storehouse where we will store resources such as water, food, oxygen, and our space suits.
4.- A health center to look after when we suffer illnesses or injuries.
5.- A control room to communicate and control the robots which help us.
6.- A gym to help us to keep fit.
7.- A laboratory to do experiments.
8.- A garage, to store the vehicles. (vehicles to excavate, extract water…).
9.- Solar panels, to collect solar energy.
Finally we will say that the main objective to go to the moon and establish a camp is because we would like to investigate the territory, and be able to a start a colony in the future so that some humans will live on the moon and there won’t be so many people on earth and it will be a more space healthy to live.
An astronaut would want to go to the moon to find out more about it, do research there, and also contribute to the planet both militarily and scientifically.
The astronaut wants to establish a lunar camp, because that is the purpose of the mission, lunar colonization. In addition, by building the lunar camp we will be able to stay there for a long time to explore, investigate and of course live.
Shackleton crater
The ideal would be to place our lunar camp at the south pole of the moon, more precisely in a crater called Shackleton. Because we have seen that in the whole moon it is the safest place to camp on the moon.
Thus it would be protected by the walls of the crater. The edge of this crater is 1700 meters above sea level, this point has a place in which sunlight has an average of 85%. Also, for communication with the earth, one of the best places is the top of this crater.
Once we get to the moon, the first thing we will do is place the greenhouse so that we can already plant the food with which we will later feed ourselves. Later, we will gradually build the entire camp depending on the importance of each section of the camp. After the greenhouse the most important thing would be the room to take refuge, later we will build the control room to communicate with the earth and let them know that we are alive .
We will try to get most of the water from the ice at the south pole of the moon, since there is some ice there and a lot of water can be obtained that way.
To do this, we will use one of our extraction vehicles to extract water from the ice at the south pole of the moon. We extract water daily so that we do not run out of water in case of an emergency. The water will be stored in a tank that will be located in the warehouse. The extractor vehicle will be stored in the garage along with other vehicles.
Thanks to the location of our camp (Shackleton crater) the camp will be very protected by the edges of the crater. Also, all the buildings will be reinforced with a layer of iron (since it can be extracted from the moon) and another of lead so that stardust, radiation, and any other danger does not affect the camp and a dome.
Although all the rooms in our camp are important, the cabin is one of the most important parts of our camp, which will be less protected because it is located in the middle of the crater. Then the walls of the crater will not be able to help that security, therefore, we will reinforce that central area of the camp.
The camp is zoned and pressurized so that when you are in a zone, you focus only on that zone, so things from one zone don’t get into another and therefore last, if there is a leak, or a wall is broken, do not destroy the entire camp.
Water: Inside the crater there is a very extensive layer of ice, 22% of the crater (346 km2). Doing calculations, there are 7 million liters of water, so there would be no problem with quantity, just access to it.
We propose extracting the water with an extractor robot.
food: While the trip lasts and the first days that we are there we will eat canned food. (20 days) Once established on the Moon we will begin to grow potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce and spinach.
Air: Taking advantage of the crop that we are going to have, we will use the carbon dioxide that we expel in order to transform it into oxygen and be able to use it again. We will transform the air through a tube, when we expel CO2 there will be a tube that carries the carbon dioxide to the filter.
Energy: To get energy we will use solar panels distributed around the camp. Our location has a high percentage of sunlight per day (85%), therefore we believe that it can cover the basic needs of the camp and we anticipate having a surplus of energy that we will store in an emergency deposit in case there is a problem.
Our training program would have several sections: one of general knowledge that all astronauts must acquire and another more specific one oriented to each of the profiles.
The generic training would cover aspects such as:
Physical condition of high level athletes.
Extensive experience in neutral buoyancy, orientation and balance.
Basic knowledge of first aid.
Basic knowledge of botany.
Basic knowledge of mechanics and mechatronics.
Basic knowledge of communications.
Extensive knowledge of astronomy.
Basic knowledge in the handling of the rocket and in the control of the extractor robot.
Specific training would cover aspects such as:
pilot and astronomer
Botologist and chemical.
Physician and telecommunications engineer.
Mechanical and construction engineer.
