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NASA Considers Mobile Lunar Base
colonist writes "During the Apollo missions, astronauts explored on foot or in rovers. The next astronauts on the moon may move the entire base instead. Marc Cohen, from NASA's Ames Research Center, proposes a lunar base on wheels or legs, such as the habot (robotic habitat) or the mobitat (mobile habitat). Cohen considers mobile bases superior to rovers: 'To avoid life-threatening or other compromising situations that might occur with only one rover traveling to a remote place, a second rover might travel with the first. But what if the second rover runs into a problem, too - the same or a different problem? Well, that means a third rover. So, why not make the entire base mobile, so that all the resources, reliability and redundancy of the lunar mission move with the excursion crew?' Of course, mobile bases are nothing new. Terran buildings have been lifting off for years."
It's been something of a dream to see us go back to the Moon. Mostly on the basis that we need to support space exploration and without people getting interested, that won't happen. However, with new and unique ideas in contrast to the moon, much like this one, it may ignite even more people to support space travel. On a different note, it would be interesting to see how a mobile base would work let alone fair in some large disaster. Instead of one or two deaths, we now have ten.
:-)
- P.S.: I know I just contradicted myself in some fashion, but so be it.
If we want to go back, send a mars type rover first and put it near one of the previous landing sites. It would be nice for planning purposes to know how the lower part of a lander has held up for thirty years or more. Might help plan the construction of something permanent.
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So, why not make it underground, and just tunnel everywhere? We could become the Mole People!
Seriously though, it would shield from (some? UV?) radiation as well as help against debris striking the base (provided the debris was small and/or the base & tunnels were deep enough underground).
Plus, the moon rock between you and space would provide some sort of insulation and therefore warmth as opposed to being simply "out in the open", wouldn't it? And how hard could moon-mining be anyway? There's no issue of debris, just shoot it out into space, or even at Earth and it will just burn up (assuming the pieces are small enough). Of course, this could be bad as if they don't make it we could end up with a lovely ring of debris around the moon.
Regardless of what happens, there's some pretty cool stuff waiting in the future. Hope it's in my lifetime.
What if the mobitat (or whatever) runs into the same problem the rover[s] ran into? In general what if the mobitat runs into any problems? This page shows a mobitat that also acts as a lander. I'm guessing it would also act as the return vehicle. Do you really want to put your ticket back home into more jeopardy than absolutely necessary? For example, by having it move around, possibly through difficult terrain and such. Of course one would have to weigh the benefit of not having to travel to get back to your return vehicle over the mobility of this type of habitat and the equipment-carrying capability it implies.
Are these guys considering the fact that the mobile base might break down too so that doesn't really solve the problem of rovers breaking down?
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So, why not make it underground, and just tunnel everywhere? We could become the Mole People!
Well, for starters there would be the problem about tunnels not being air-tight. Although I suppose a thin sheet of plastic would solve that (since the air pressure will push it outward against the walls of the tunnel).
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Giving this some thought, I wonder if it will provide any good return of information we do not already know.
1) the the last few decades material sciences has advanced a lot, for example I believe that the amount of titatium and composite materials being used today is a lot more than the lunar lander.
2) if we are worried about the effect of radiation, vacuum, etc on space structures - we really don't need to look at the lander: an astronaunt can just walk outside of the space station (provided a functional suit or two) - or even have the spaceshuttle pick up and old satellite or two. Those are being subjected to much harsher environments than the lander moon
3) we can fairly accurately duplicate the environment on the moon, and carry out the same experiment (even, accelerated) on earth.
4) construction of a moonbase would probably take place underground to take advantage of some cheap radiation / meteorite shielding from the moon's dirt. the above ground structure does not provide readily corrolateable information in this regard.
Indeed, with unlimited resources it would be interesting to see if microfractures develop due to small meteorite impact / radiation / day/night temperature cycle and such, but it would seem that these can be learned via separate means without the need of a dedicated rover mission.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
And I mean this in all sincerity. It appears that they're not really sure what the next big thing is. Perhaps its Mars, or maybe RV moon bases. Remember the space station? I thought not. The ISS seems to have become boring background noise to the American public. Until someone gets killed in that duct-taped tin can, it won't get more than a passing mention. I suspect that the BIG problem is that we've just about hit the technical limit of what can be accomplished with big metal firecrackers blasting off from Earth every once in a while. The TRUE exploitation of space will have to wait for the next technological breakthrough. Perhaps a space elevator, or a plasma photo drive. :)
eureka!
thanks sinner you gave me an idea.
maybe this sounds stupid, but wouldn't it be possible to make the base a giant sphere? essentially a hamster ball.
Two spheres really. An external sphere in contact with the moon's surface and a free-floating internal sphere - with the living quarters and such.
how to keep it floating? well, first we need a nuclear power plant (but of course). then we could find good use from our good old friend magnetism...or whatever.
then, drive it the same way a hamster drives his ball; create an magnetic impulse between the internal and external sphere. the internal sphere will try to climb the inner-wall of the external sphere and the external sphere will counter with an equal and opposite reaction which will result in forward movement. Nuclear meltdown aside, it sounds like a relatively simple concept. and it's bound to have less moving parts than some trackless-locomotive or star-wars-power-droid-lookin' hundred legged breakdown-machine.
Now that I've established my expert credentials: If you're going to be on an energy budget there are almost certainly going to be higher priorities than the energy required to lug everything around. Orders of magnitude difference- think of all the other things you could be doing.
Pick a good place with as much water as possible and start building the telescope, is what I say.
The moon rotates every 29 plus days, call it 700 hours.
The diameter of the moon is about 2162 miles, so the circumference is about 6800 miles. So at less than 10 mph, even at the equator, you can keep the entire moon between you and solat radiation.
Not realistic at the equator, but rather fun.
Nearer the poles though, this could be entirely feasible. Use the mobile base to simply avoid daylight.
Rules out solar power, of course.
Steve
I think they write too much sci-fi...
Seriously, I feel a bit sorry for the folks there. The interesting science that they do is not really interesting enough to warrant the billions invested unless they can come up with military applications or appeal to the Trekker in the public. Hence have the nanobe "discovery" while shilling for money to send men to Mars or school teachers on missions to generate excitement for the space shuttle. Meanwhile, planetary probe missions get cancelled.
Maybe it is time to retire this relic of the cold war or just admit that it is primarily for military purposes and re-allocate the funds for science elsewhere. Give the money to someone who understands O-rings and knows what units to use..
I've thought for years that companies that make 'habitats' all need to tie up with NASA.
...
I think it'd be great if boat mfr's, RV mfr's, and cheap house mfr's, all got together and developed a common, open, standardized framework for habitat design and construction, with NASA involved.
Every time I look at a UFO, I think to myself 'well-designed Winnebago', and if I could, I'd buy one of those instead of ___insert_favorite_waste_of_realty_here___ any time
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Sheilding!
You don't have the earth to protect from all those evil sunspots, misc radiation sources, and micrometorites. A mobile base would have to manufacture it's sheilding on earth and ship it (at extrodinary cost) to the moon.
A static base can just pile up moon dirt on it's self. (or just give the astronots a shovel!)
I always loved the reason that Joss Weadon gave in fire fly for why the future looked more like a western. It's the frontier stoopid. Resources are rare, machines break down, and simple works just fine. If you ship 2 motor bikes to a remote planet you will only have 2 motor bikes, but if you ship two horses... Of course this is the moon, not the wild wild planet, however the basic idea aplies. KISS
I would rather be ashes than dust!
actually, vacuum is a hell of an insulator, the only way you can lose heat in space is via radiation, which is a fairly slow process, You wont instantl freeze if you take of your space suit (in the shadow). What we would need to insulate against would be solar radiation, since that can get pretty hot up there (~150C, IIRC), plus we get the benefit of shielding against particle/etc radiation
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Like this one Space 1999.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
What happens when the mobile base runs into a problem? Will they send a second? Why mess with the moon anyway? We know we could sustain life on another heavenly body, so why go to the expense to do it? I think the money would be better spent developing other technologies for space exploration. Maybe better radiation shielding, or better engines. The current state of the space program is stagnant at best, hopefully with the door opening to private corporations to explore space we will see more innovation in ships, rocketry, and shielding technologies.
Instead of a shuttle that should be collecting social security.
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I don't care how NASA is pitching it - one of those designs is a burly rover and the other is an unstable tinkertoy. Neither design is a "mobile base" - they are both large rovers.
A base should, by any reasonable designation hold at least a dozen people, these units look like they each hold 1-3 people, max. So they have a docking tunnel, big deal. They are still rovers, not mobile bases. A fleet of mobile bases (like in the Habot pic) will need a shirt-sleeve environment for maintenance, guaranteed. Hence, any schema like this will end up basing from a buried garage/base of some kind. The units might make sense for exploration, especially if the units can lift, fly to a new area to explore, then fly back to a main base.
Others have already mentioned it, but shielding on the moon is a critical issue. Even with the tanks mounted above, a user of one of these steroid-Rovers is going to get an unhealthy dose of radiation. This kind of setup would probably require a buried, rad-safe base to retreat to.
The Mobitat uses a modified version of the Mars rover "rocker-bogey" suspension - it's good to see that NASA will keep using what has turned into a very successful design.
The Habot is, IMHO, totally impractical. The "walker" legs would be a maintenance nightmare in the lunar environment. The fines (very small particles) on the moon are abrasive and static-charged. The particles find their way into anything - the Apollo suits were breaking down after a few days exposure. Sealing the joints on those legs is going to prove futile - wheels have similar problems but not nearly as complex.
Cute viewgraphs, I'm waiting for a private base.
Build lunar base.
do something.
profit!
Josh
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