In Moon Camp Pioneers, each team’s mission is to 3D design a complete Moon Camp using the software of their choice. 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.
DOUKAS SCHOOL Marousi-ATHENS Greece 15 2 / 0 English
3D design software: Fusion 360
Our mission is to install a camp in a lunar lava tube in compliance with the UN Moon Agreement. The name of the camp is “PETRALONA” which is one of the oldest caves used by prehistoric man in Europe.
Phase 1- PREPARATION. Initially an orbiter (possibly the Gateway) around moon would provide a base for multi-week crewed trips to the Moon’s surface in a pressurized rover in order detailed maps of the surface and subsurface to be prepared. A robotic probe will explore the entrance, walls and tunnel of Marius Hills tube concerning suitability for human habitation, the existence of ice, and to develop logistics.
Phase 2- BASE SETTLEMENT. Three unmanned cargo flights with rocket Ariane 6 and one manned with ESA’s recyclable spacecraft will prepare lava tube and establish primary systems: elevator, pressurized habitats, energy, communication, and life supply systems.
Phase 3- SELF-SUSTAINABLE CAMP. In situ manufacturing and assembly of habitat and infrastructure constructions. In situ life support and power generation, regolith mining, oxygen extraction, water production, solar panel and other power plants, greenhouse, and fuel production. A remotely controlled robotic plantation for ice and volatile elements (N, H, C) extraction will be established at Aristarchus plateau and a 300Km pipeline will connect it to our camp.
Phase 4- BASE EXTENTION. In situ fabrication and repair. Moon exploration and experiments. Deep space exploration, support for Mars travels and commercial activities.
Establish the first extraterrestrial human settlement as an initial step for expanding man’s activities in the solar system and especially as an intermediate station for traveling to Mars. It will serve as a long-term experiment for studying the permanent habitation of another planet with unfriendly living conditions away from earth. It is a marvelous opportunity to try new technologies in real situations, the logistics of such an attempt, the medical and psychological problems of the astronauts. Moon provides a unique science laboratory for experiments in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and sociology which cannot be conducted on Earth, concerning the genesis of earth and moon, our protection from space-based threats, and for advanced deep space observation with new telescopes. Besides, lunar valuable resource extraction (including rare earth metals, new minerals, and Helium-3), the manufacture of marketable space products and tourism will advance technology, foster economic growth and create rewarding job prospects.
In a lave tube at the Marius Hills region with a skylight (58 × 49m and 40m deep) and roof thickness of 20–25 m, at coordinates 14.2°N, 303.3°E. Such a habitat would be completely protected from radiation, extreme temperature variations, meteorites bombardment, static electricity and regolith dust. Avoiding the extremely low temperatures at the poles will save almost 30% of the power needed. Thus, large reductions in weight, complexity, special protocols and shielding compared to surface habitats are feasible, expanding science mission objectives and duration, allowing larger number of crew (working under routine conditions and improved psychology) and more payload mass to be landed for science purposes. Equator is the easiest site to land and in constant communication with Earth although lunar nights is a challenge for power. Nearby maria’s mature soil is rich in metals. Water (>500-700 ppm), N, H and C resources as pyroclastic deposits are significant at Aristarchus plateau. Most recent data showed widespread water abundance stored in impact glass beads.
During preparation terrestrial material will be carried, including self- deployable shelters, oxygen and water production/recycling units, one-month food, solar panels and charged batteries for the night period, air lock modules, aluminum, carbon fibers, mining crane, two robotic rovers, antennas, 3D printer, spacesuits, small quantities of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen.
After leveling the tunnel floor, the selected segment will be shielded from the surface by impermeably sealing the skylight and then blocking the underneath lumen on either side with airtight walls. Fenestrations opened on the roof will be shielded with transparent ceramic from aluminum oxynitride for natural illumination along with lamps that emit visible and infrared, UV-A and UV-B light to better mimic sunlight. A pressurized area filled with breathable air of 1 atm will be created.
Permanent habitats will be constructed with regolith casts and 3D printing using lunar soil. Petralona camp consists of a central tower containing one elevator for heavy loads and one for personnel, beginning from the tunnel floor and expanding through the shielded skylight to the lunar surface into a dome structure protected from radiation by a 2-meter-thick regolith cover and having ceramic windows. It is the main entrance for crew and vehicles through an airlock module. Rovers can also airtightly dock there. On the surface are also the launch pad, solar plates and a protective shell with a rocket for emergent escape.
Habitats using a simple, low-cost orthogonal design will be made of durable lightweight materials, connected together and with the tower’s base parallel to the ground through airlock modules. These include a common leisure and activities area, private rooms for each person (as the need for personal space is of paramount importance), a control and communications center, laboratories, medical facilities, greenhouse, buildings for recycling systems, regolith processing, electrolyser, energy storage, maintenance garage and warehouse.
A ramp from the surface to the tunnel floor will be an alternative access. In the tunnel outside the walls will be the fuel tanks, the nuclear power plant and paleoregolith mines.
On moon’s surface dust, solar wind and static electricity of hundreds of volts as in polar craters along with extreme alternating temperatures between 127 C and minus 173 C will wear down the health of the crew, electronic devices, solar panels and other machinery. Significant operational, technological, and economical benefits result if a lunar base is constructed inside a lava tube. Our camp will be airtightly shielded from the surface environment in order to offer habitable circumstances inside with steady mild temperatures around 17 Celsius compared to the wildly fluctuating day/night temperatures on the Moon’s surface. Moreover, the whole internal outpost will be filled with breathable air pressurized at 1 atm and connected through pipeline with a region rich in water and volatiles. The roof of the selected lava tube is almost 25m and thus it provides absolute protection against micrometeoroids, meteorites, and cosmic radiation since the conventional radiation shield is only partially effective. It is also safe against moonquakes and has sturdy properties. The abundance of space permits incremental expansion of the base by connecting extra habitats through airlock modules and in case of a damaged part could simply be isolated from the rest by closing the shared hatches. Furthermore, being at the near-the-earth side at the equator level makes communication with earth unimpeded, protecting the crew from any emergencies, especially medical emergencies that require immediate robotic surgical intervention remotely controlled from a specialized team on earth. Due to the protected environment and maximum thermal insulation, the energy requirements are reduced, the production of food will be easier experimental farming and regolith cultivation feasible, and the needs for water, air and power smaller and more economical. Working in convenient, healthy, large habitats, without heavy spacesuits makes everyday life closer to that on earth upgrading their psychology and safety.
WATER
Putting together hydrogen (from lunar regolith, which is constantly implanted 40-50ppm by the solar wind or is scavenged from landers fuel cells after each landing) and oxygen
Solar wind-derived water stored in impact glass beads all over Moon’s surface (7 × 1014 kg).
Pyroclastic deposits of water extracted from nearby Aristarchus plateau (>500-700ppm)
Ice mixed with soil at permanently shadowed regions or in the lava tube’s paleoregolith
After the combination of hydrogen with crew exhaled CO2 or with that obtained from lunar cold traps (4H2 + CO2 → 2H2O + CH4, Sabatier Reaction)
Through a stringent recycling system
AIR
Breathable air production facilities (20% O2 and 80% Nitrogen) create oxygen
from water using electrolysis
from plants in the greenhouse by photosynthesis
from lunar regolith (as oxides 40-45% oxygen by mass) by reduction of regolith with pyrolysis (2FeTiO3+2H2 →2Fe+2TiO2+2H2+O2) or through a molten salt electrolytic process.
Nitrogen can be extracted from the mare basalt after heating along with H2 and CO and reclaimed through recycling systems.
FOOD
Fast-growing plants such as kale, sweet potato, wheat, lettuces, cucumbers, tomatoes, soybeans, quinoa, radishes, cress, fungi and potatoes could be grown hydroponically in the greenhouse lit by LEDs.
An aquaculture with species of modest O2 needs, low CO2 output, short hatching time and minimal energy requirements (5 to 20 times lower than that of mammals) like sea bass and meager whose eggs will be sent from the earth. However, mussels and shrimp are superior solution in terms of space occupation and caloric intake per mass.
Poultry farming-eggs
Meat production using gene engineering in vitro cell cultures
POWER
A 40KW nuclear fission system
Solar energy. The long night can be confronted by building photovoltaic array plants at scattered locations, so that at least one of them is always in daylight or a power plant where there is constant or near-constant sunlight. Lasers will beam energy from sunlit areas to shadowed regions. Or storing energy during the 15 days with sunlight.
Solar-driven electrolysers split water into oxygen and hydrogen to form propellant or be recombined in regenerative fuel cells as stored energy.
Methane from Sabatier reaction and from pyrolysis of plastic trash and crew waste with in-situ oxygen.
Non-reusable items will be fabricated from photochemically degradable materials after exposure to sun UV radiation, while small pieces of trash will be processed in an incinerator under the use of oxygen reducing waste volume drastically. All remnants can be buried in a near base crater or a lava tube with sealed entrance, using it as landfill.
Packaged waste can be blasted away from Moon; e.g., into the direction of the Sun (especially for toxic or radioactive ones) or into Earth’s atmosphere for a planned destructive re-entry over an uninhabited area.
In bioregenerative life support, plants and bacteria process all inedible waste of food, human excrements and other biological waste to some kind of fertilizer. Hygiene water, insensible perspiration, toilet flush mixed with fecal and urine are recycled with ultra-filtration to water for pouring in the greenhouse. Cabin exhaled carbon dioxide combined with hydrogen will reclaim water and produce methane (Sabatier Reaction).
On the Moon radio wave antennas always need direct sight contact. Satellites in lunar orbit make it easier and they also cooperate for GPS navigation system. Advanced systems using Klystrons on the equator’s near side will be in constant communication with Earth’s system of ground stations, including the Deep Space Antennas. Long-
range communication with rovers or other camps is also achieved via the satellites while short one by small dipole antennas which can just send up to ten kilometers. Base internal communication can be achieved by ethernet cables.
LTE/4G or 5G technology will be tested for lunar surface communications since the lunar landscape is generally an open terrain and electromagnetic waves propagate even without atmosphere.
Laser-based optical communication between the Earth and Moon or between satellites will be established using optical telescopes as beam expanders, enabling the transfer of more data in less time such as 4k video transmissions or time sensitive robotic surgery remotely controlled from earth.
TOPICS:
Astronomy, Space Science, Biology, Biotechnology, Seismology, Volcanology, Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, Sociology
EXPERIMENTS:
Telescopes integrated with advanced high complexity prognostic algorithms for early detection of asteroid collision with earth.
Radio-telescope using the far side as stable platform to study radiation from the early Universe, protected from terrestrial radio emissions and other atmospheric disturbances (e.g., clouds, moonlight, humidity).
Low-temperature Liquid Mirror Telescopes on both poles observing, free of thermal background, the universe, in the infrared range, to study origins, evolution, and properties of the universe.
Astroparticles physics (e.g., high energy netrinos, antiparticles etc)
Lunar laser ranging testing general relativity and searching the nature of dark matter.
Sampling the Moon’s ancient craters to study how the Moon–Earth system was formed
Using solar wind for energy production
Using static electricity scavengers in the polar craters as energy banks
Remote robotic surgery under microgravity for emergent situations, with real time immediate response from medical center on Earth and big data transmission
Ultra-lightweight materials for space applications
Materials behavior and mechanisms in extreme environments, low gravity and in high electrostatic dust environment
Advanced robotics for extreme environment sensing, mobility, manipulation and automated and autonomous detection, calibration and repair.
In-space manufacturing and autonomous assembly of structures and spacecraft
Electrostatic levitation with ionic-liquid ion sources
Development of multi-megawatt ion engines and antimatter propulsion for Mars
Produce meat in a lab using vitro cell cultures derived from animal proteins.
Seismology, volcanology of lava tubes
Damage-resistant and self-healing materials
Regolith process techniques for oxygen, water and other elements extraction
Biosignatures of alien life, especially in lava tubes
Experiment design to create data that is AI/ML ready for quantification of uncertainty against misleading correlations, as solution guide for interplanetary traveling and new discovery spaces.
How microgravity affects tissue growth and wound healing
Synthetic blood and skin production
Testing high shielding techniques for eliminating thermal or air losses and volatile losses during excavation
All crewmembers, prime and backup crews, selected for the Moon camp will train together, because they have to both get to know each other and also learn to work together efficiently and according to the distributed roles and responsibilities that they are assigned to. All new astronaut candidates, who have different professional backgrounds and expertise, must reach to a common minimum knowledge base. They must learn medicine, languages, robotics and piloting, spaceflight and space system engineering, the organization of space systems, agriculture and advanced computer science.
They will be trained in environments of lack of gravity, while wearing their spacesuit, in order to be ready for Moon walking.
They will deal with technical disciplines, such as electrical engineering, aerodynamics, propulsion, orbit mechanics, materials and structures, in addition to being introduced to science disciplines, like research under microgravity (in human physiology, biology and material sciences), Earth observation, astronomy, and space law and intergovernmental agreements concerning the worldwide cooperation in space.
They should be instructed to live, work and perform scientific experiments in the extreme environment of Moon through detailed hands on and augmented virtual reality overview of all camp systems (e.g. habitat structure and design, excavation sites, guidance navigation & control, thermal control, electrical power generation and distribution, command and tracking, life support systems, generic robotic operations, rendezvous and docking, systems for extra-vehicular activities, payload systems), as well as on the major systems of those spacecrafts and rovers which service the camp. Astronauts preparing to explore lava tubes would need training in traversing vertically developed environments and cave exploration with uneven terrain, sharp rocks, and rock falls, while walking on Moon is accompanied by dust raise and electrification.
Training also includes education to deal with off-nominal situations, failure analysis and recovery/repair activities. These missions are not completely independent without the presence of robots. This opens up a new avenue towards human-robot interaction.
TRAVEL TO AND FROM EARTH
Reusable lander of vertical landing for crew and for docking to the ISS
Unmanned cargo rocket
Recyclable lander
Stand by rocket for emergency evacuation.
Earth-Moon non-rocket transportation using a cable fabricated by carbon nanotubes
VEHICLES ON MOON
Pressurized rovers that dock to the base or to another Rover.
All-terrain tractors with bulldozer blade attachable in front, carrying either water tank or cargo box or waste disposal box, and possessing robotic arm equipped with a digger/shovel.
Teleoperated crane for heavy lifting,
Teleoperated drill and regolith excavator vehicle.
Rail tracks using magnetic levitation
Pressurized cable cars that can dock to the base.
MOON EXPLORATION
Multi-Mission Exploration Vehicle with autonomous life support systems for 4-8 astronauts and range 200km, independent telecommunication with earth, a drone on board, oxygen and water recycling capabilities that increases life support up to 14 days, a solar array and RFC. Can be also used as refuges until help arrives from earth.
Teleoperated DRONES, with Hydrogen peroxide propulsion or CO2 gas jets or electrostatic levitation with an ion thruster
