Discussion of
Lunar Analog Program
Goals & Future of
Moon Society Moonbase Analog Program
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Oregon Moonbase
(lavatube site)
We hope to put online additional Oregon Moonbase
articles from back issues of Starseed, former publication
of Oregon L5 Society.
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Artemis
Moonbase Sim 1
at
the Mars
Desert Research Station
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Calgary
Space Workers
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Cal-Earth,
Hesperia, CA
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Mexican
LunarHab
(MLH) -
Mexican
Space Society - updated July 25, 2010
Proposed
facility - 2
locations being looked at
(a) location 120 km E of Ciudad Juarez.
(across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas)
(b) in the Yucatan near the tourist centers of Cancun
& Cozumel
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Planned
Hawaii Island Lunar Analog Facility
Pacific
International Space Center
for
Exploration Systems
(PISCES)
PISCES is a
collaborative project
of the Japan-U.S. Science, Technology & Space
Applications Program (JUSTSAP), the Hawaii State
Department of Business, Economic Development &
Tourism (DBEDT), and the University of Hawaii at
Hilo.
The volcanic soils and
lunar-like
terrain, diverse multiethnic population, and
substantial scientific and technical expertise found
in Hawaii make the islands an ideal location to
support international programs for testing and
evaluating innovative technologies to support future
robotic and manned exploration of the Moon and Mars,
as well as for training scientists, engineers and
future astronauts for future space
missions.
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U-AZ/CEAC Lunar
Greenhouse /
moonbase
This proposal is
an outgrowth
of the highly successful
Food Growth Chamber
built by Sadler Machine Co at CEAC, the Closed
Environment Agriculture Center at the University of
Arizona in Tucson. The FGC has been installed at the
Scott-Amundsen (US) base at the Antarctic South Pole
and providing two salads a day for each member of the
stations 75 person crew. The chamber recycles its own
biomass and human wastes and water, and is the most
successful Biological Life Support System yet, at a
time that NASA has given up on its own BioPlex project
in Houston and stopped funding BLSS experiments at
Purdue and elsewhere.
There is a photo
gallery at
the site linked above as well as two excellent
PowerPoint presentations readers can
download.
What works in
Antarctica could work
on the Moon and Mars. Phil Sadler presented his work
and plans for an moonbase that would expand out of a
single lander and use this system for life support, at
ISDC 2007 in Dallas.
Watch these five Moon Society
Video Segments on this
project
These interviews were conducted at ISDC 2007, Dallas,
TX over the Memorial Day Weekend. Video production by
Moon Society member Chip Proser, Celestial Mechanics,
Inc.
\
- CEAC/Sadler
image of a Food Growth Chamber application on the
Moon
- Inflatable
FGC designed for Mars or
Moon
- Photo
of model of proposed
FGC-incorporating Moonbase
demonstrated at ISDC 2007. Six inflatable arms would
expand out of the landed moonbase to provide habitat
and green space. The lander would first release a
remote operated bulldozer which would create furrows
for the arms at the proper distance from the landing
site. The landers legs would then "walk" the
lander/moonbase to the prepared site, the arms would
inflate over the prepared furrows, and the bulldozer
would cover them with regolith. The model was fully
operational and demonstrated all these operations to
the utter amazement of ISDC goers.
- Sadler and
CEAC are looking for $115,000 to build their
full size prototype at the University of Arizona or
elsewhere. Sadler would like to erect a version at the
Antarctic south pole where the snow has the same
weight in Earth gravity as the regolith does in lunar
gravity. NASA, having cut off all support for
Biological Life Support research is disinterested if
not hostile. It is up to the space enthusiast
community to make this happen. This technology may not
be needed for an intermittently occupied moonbase, but
it certainly will be needed for civilian settlements.
NASA can afford to be shortsighted. We
cannot.
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Moon
Mine Project in Sweden
Long
time Moon Society member and Advisor Niklas Jarvstrat has secured
rights to an abandoned mine in central Sweden and as ambitious plans to
transform it into a comprehensive lunar analog facility, with specific
projects for starters.
1) Habitation and agriculture design - layout and
design for making an underground tunnel "feel" like outdoors and open
space.
2) Artificial light agriculture - or even better, agriculture using
fiber-transmitted sunlight.
3) Collecting and distributing sunlight for underground agriculture.
4) Low equipment production facilities. (Extracting iron from the low
grade ore that might still be available in this mine and using the iron
for producing metal parts.)
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Proposed
Moon/Mars Atacama Research Station in Northern Chile
A
Team of Advisers, including from the Moon Society, is assisting the Air
Force in Chile in designing a modular analog research team to simulate
activities on both Moon and Mars in the Atacama desert near the growing
complex of world-class observatories there. This collaboration has been
arranged by TATA, The Astronaut Teacher Alliance based in San Diego,
already involved in planning outreach for the new Inca del Sol
Observatory.
The command
module will be the wingless fuselage of a surplus Hercules C130B cargo plane.
Additional modules may be soil-shielded Quonset huts (simulating buried
cylinders). The design is in flux, but they have a firm target date for
initial deployment of March 2010.
You
can follow discussions on the MMARS
Google Group
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Lunar Simulant:
Production of
Physical Analogs
(Here, the
physical/handling
properties are modeled rather than the
chemical/mineralogical ones. This allows simulation of
regolith-handling operations, dust control, shielding
emplacement, etc.)
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Biospheric
Projects
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Undersea Analogs
of
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Breaking News
from India
There
is the start of a movement in India, amidst enthusiasm after the launch
of Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter and the announcement that India will
start a Manned Space Program, to brainstorm a Lunar Analog Research Station in India
Breaking News from Spain - Canary Islands
STARS - "Space Tourism & Analog Research Station" - collecting information on space analog research to be presented at http://www.congrex.nl/09c34/
- an ESA site" - also involved with MSSE (Multipurpose Simulated
Space Environment) - building something like a Biosphere II in Spain" -
intend to create a worldwide network of analog research. Contact:
Cayetano Santana
"The
basic concept behind STARS is doing space flight research while, at the
same time, arousing the interest of broad levels of the population in
space topics. This idea has lead to a combination of space flight
research and space tourism for everyone: a simulated space hotel on
Gran Canary which is linked with a real space flight research area."
