Moon base Home

The Moonbase Book document will focus on building and expanding a human occupied base on the Moon, its daily operations and of course, Mission Safety.

In their Global Exploration Roadmap and the Charting the Course for Sustainable Human Exploration document, the international space community and NASA looks 25 years into the future while envisioning a capabilities driven approach to mission design and leaving low Earth orbit (LEO) to explore and to set up a human presence in cislunar space, a hypothetical sphere, slightly higher than the Moon’s orbit around the Earth.

This will allow for the development of new advanced satellite servicing technologies and thus will provide new opportunities for the private sector, while NASA also offers to put a space outpost at the EML2 Lagrange point, the one on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun. (A Lagrange point is a position in an orbital configuration of two large bodies where a small object – think spacecraft – affected only by gravity can maintain a stable position relative to the two large bodies, i.e. the Earth and the Moon – source: Wikipedia)

A while ago the first one year crew just launched to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and will extensively conduct research on the matter of long duration mission challenges to pave the way for future space travelers’ mission safety.

The Moon Base Book will be authored by Betty Donelly and aims at a future say, 50 years ahead to see what ambitious plans for a human presence on the Moon can be elaborated upon. A vision which will have to fit nicely into the broader context of the exploration and utilisation of the entire solar system.

With a basic in-space architecture in place and a Lunar Robotics Workstation (LRW) on the surface we can easily set up a permanent human settlement on the Moon in about 8 years. (source: ESA)
The LRW can build a Human Base Core (HBC) habitation camp in three months using only a 3D printing robot. (source: ESA)

The base is solar powered and consumables production (especially water and oxygen, but also other gases and metals) for human consumption as well as for fuel and the building of structures or the 3D-printing of spare parts is done by a technology called In-Situ Resource Utilisation or ISRU.

Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVA’s or spacewalks), using a large pressurised rover  can be performed to establish new outpost destinations for new habs, ISRU-purposes or to perform science.

Maintenance can be done mostly by autonomous self-diagnostic- and repair systems and materials so humans can do more science or whatever it is human settlers do on the Moon, although human intervention cannot totally be eliminated.

Environmental protection is a major concern when dealing with radiation, micro-meteoroids and the very unhealthy and sticky Moon dust, which contains microscopic glass particles that you don’t want to breath in. Therefore the 3D printing robot will cover the HBC with solidified regolith (Moon dirt) in preparation for the arrival of the first 4-person crew to stay on the Moon for a long duration mission.

The foremost concern in mission safety however is crew autonomy for when problems arise and there is no way to communicate with the ground Mission Control Centers, which will be scattered throughout our world, Earth, because of the international nature of the whole Moon base entreprise.

Much of the technical terms are derived from NASA documents covering all aspects of space exploration in detail. This allows for a better understanding of and linguistic compatibility between documents pertaining to human space mission design.

Hope you will enjoy The Moon Base Book. Don’t hesitate to bookmark this website and feel free to like, share and comment. (commenting is available in the blog section)

Vision

Exploring space has many benefits and will vitalise, strengthen and enrich humanity’s future by bringing nations, private entreprises, academia and ordinary people closer together in a common cause.

New international and commercial partnerships will bring discoveries and innovations to all humankind while inspiring, stimulate and motivate new generations of students and entrepreneurs in a continuing effort to expand our reach throughout the solar system.

This document focuses on building and expanding a base on the Moon, it’s operations and mission safety, but her vision is embedded in the broader context of an existing international strategy for human exploration across the entire solar system, called the Global Exploration Strategy (GES) and fits within the way of thinking and the mission scenario for the Moon described in the Global Exploration Roadmap or GER.

Two feasible pathways to Mars, defined in the GER, will enable successful but complex and challenging missions to the Moon, asteroids and Mars, within the broader vision of sustainable human space exploration of the solar system. (Source: GER – 2011)

The Moon base project will take the concept of a basic human/smart hab and leverage its possibilities for inclusion into an overarching space web design.



Betty Donelly