Preparing for Life on the Moon–Part I
Even though NASA’s astronauts will not begin exploring the moon until 2020, plans are being made for the first week of habitation, gradually extending their visits as the lunar outpost is built. The newly developed concepts will need to provide protection and support that will be light and compact, according to NASA’s plans. For a fact, the 125 pounds of cargo launching from Earth will need to cover many things–fuel, engines, and spacecraft systems–in order to get one pound of cargo on the moon. Also, due to the fact the astronauts will be in spacesuits and cumbersome, the habitats will need to be simple and easy-to-assemble.
So far, what has been developed is the use of inflatable structures through a joint effort by NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the ILC Dover of Frederica, Delaware, in a NASA-sponsored Innovative Partnership Program. The development being investigated is the inflatable structure technology, possibly to use as long-term habitats for astronauts living on the moon in the near future.
Presently, this development is being tested in Antarctica–the design, construct, and proof-of-concept inflatable structure. Overall, it is being observed for how easy it is to deploy and how durable it can be under the harshest of environments. The location in Antarctica is part of McMurdo Station, the National Science Foundation’s logistics hub in Antarctica.
Designed to match the NSF habitats currently being used there, its size and volume are 16 feet wide by 24 feel long, for a total of 384 square feet with eight-feet of headroom at its center of a curved ceiling. All-together, it consists of a simple arrangement: a tubular inflatable structure, an insulation blanket, guy wires, power and lighting systems, a pressurizing system, heaters, a protective floor and sensors–all developed to monitor the structure and environment. Construction takes less than four hours with four people involved in its setting-up process.
The time duration for the Antarctica study is January 2008 to February 2009, with special sensors that are placed strategically for data recording, in order to study the habitat for its usage and how it stands up to the extreme Antarctica weather. Currently, the only long-term habitation that NASA has is the space shuttle crew compartment and the International Space Station pressurized modules. And these definitely are not designed to meet the lunar or Mars exploration of human needs.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Mission Objectives, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
