ESA Holds Workshop On Lunar Base Design

plasticpixel writes "Space.com is reporting that a workshop is underway in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, to discuss and plan extraterrestrial bases for human settlement of the Moon. Full story is online. Reminds me of the lunar base I designed when I was about 9 years old for a school project. Too bad I didn't have the backing of NASA or the ESA back then. "

Comments

Moonraker

[bravehamster]

My lunar base design calls for gratuitous amounts of scantily-clad nordic women and lasers. Lots of lasers.

Seriously though, this is a great idea. I always remember the poster my teach put up in his Cosmology classroom. It was a 50's era "Moon Base of the Future!" type poster. Occasionally he would look over at it, and sigh softly to himself. Screw Watergate, the worst thing Nixon ever did was cut back the space program.

Re:Um, Hemos...

[L. VeGas]

I don't think that the ESA is going to tackle this project with popsicle sticks, styrofoam cups, cardboard paper towel rolls

No, that would be the Russian Space Agency.

Paul van Susante

[apsmith]

I met one of the lunar base workshop organizers, Paul van Susante, in Denver about a month back - he was contributing to the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference as a speaker in the Moon track, which I'd helped organize. Paul had some really nifty designs for south polar telescopes; one small one that could be deployed robotically, and a larger one (1000 sq meter) that would require human labor to put together.

The South Pole region of the Moon has emerged recently as an ideal base location; temperatures are always moderate, a selection of areas close by can be found with continuous sunlight and also continuous line-of-sight communications with Earth, and there are craters that apparently never see sunlight and are believed to contain cometary ice (water is hard to find on the Moon), and also would be ideal for telescopes.

Lunar base designs can be found going back to Army and Air Force ideas back in the 1950's, so the idea is nothing particularly new; obviously what we'd really like is to have a plan that includes ways to get the funding to actually build the things! Science, tourism, and possibly space-based energy and materials supply seem to be the main candidates... Now if NASA wasn't spending 100 times as much on Mars as on the Moon we might get somewhere...

Re:The moon is a dead end

[Skyshadow]

Yeah, the discovery of massive amounts of water was huge. Given that, I'd say the first step in establishing a successful moon base would be to move it to Mars.

Think about it: The moon is our solar system's version of a wasteland -- all it needs is a sign saying "Why live here?".

Mars, on the other hand, has all the resources you could want. With electricity and some basic engineering, farming and construction skills, you could live happily on Mars pretty much independent of Earth. Well, you might have to import some nitrogen...

Not as good as it sounds.

[surfcow]

"International Team Explores Lunar Base Proposals", sounds great, but the teams are composed entirely of students with no power to do anything except study ideas. So, a better headline might be "International students discuss lunar base proposals."

I wish it was as good as the headline sounds.
The story has nothing on real-world issues like funding, design, lobbying, private sector support - nada.

The biggest stumbling block to a true lunar base is political. Many (mostly conservative) lawmakers think that any money spend on space (other than defense spending) is a total waste. Many of those that are interested in space seem to think that the Moon should be completely ignored in favor of Mars, no matter what, no discussion, period. The former head of NASA was one of these. And we haven't been to the moon in about 25 years.

If I had a wish, it would be that these students study and publicize the politics behind those groups that are keeping us from funding a legit moon base.

=brian

Moon base alpha

[ZaneMcAuley]

*puts on pink wig*
*puts on funky miniskirt*

I'm set :)

a waste of time....

[Lumpy]

the LAST thing we need is "moon base" designs. we need important people with big enough balls to shame the US government into funding it. you can design until your head falls off, it means squat if you cant build it.

How about getting together a coalition to figure out how to get the funding to build a moonbase instead of wasting time and money.

I cant remember who said it back in the 80's... but he was right... "The only way to get the human race to the stars in a big way is to have a war with another species where we have to go to space.. until then the morons that run the government will do nothing."

So, can we declare war against Alpha Centauri yet?

Project Endurance

[cybercuzco]

This also sounds like A project that was also a class at the University of Maryland, Project Endurance. A zipped word file of the final report can be found here This project was the capstone design course for aerospace engineers at the university. Our task was to design a series of 6 missions to explore the lunar base for a period of 90 days each as a prelude to a fully manned base. Hope you enjoy.